Something Short of Human-Discontinued
by Royal Flush Short A King
Summary: SEE Natural Disaster.
1. 1

_**Hey guys! I am super excited about starting this story! Please review, with anything you noticed, liked/didn't like, comment questions and concerns!**_

_**1**_

She was half-asleep when she stumbled into her kitchen and made a cup of coffee. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she reached for the remote and turned on the TV. The news came on and the almost panicked voice of the news anchor assaulted her ears.

"A mysterious virus has claimed numerous victims in major metropolitan areas this week. New York has counted nearly two thousand victims so far, Boston nearly one thousand and Los Angeles nearly fifteen hundred. No one has been able to identify the cause of these rapid fire deaths but the government has advised that citizens make a special effort to stay indoors and to prepare for anything that may or may not happen."

_I have a sudden sense of deja vu... Swine flu any one? _Linzie snorted and changed the channel to ESPN, just in time to hear a discussion of post-Cam Newton Auburn Football. Now that was news.

She didn't have time to stay indoors, she had a Fluid Mechanics Final to administer. She could already hear the moans and groans.

But that was okay, just one last final and then she would have the summer to herself. Maybe she could find time to rebuild the '64 GTO Bobcat, that had been sitting in her work-shed for the last year.

* * *

><p>Linzie fought the chill that rode down her spine as she walked into her classroom. Half of her future mechanical engineers were missing. It was unusual for students to skip class, but a final? This was definitely worse than the swine flu.<p>

She sighed heavily, and then drawled dryly. "Hey y'all! Where's everyone? They remembered they had a final today, right?"

One of the few students in the class room shrugged. "I know a lot of people's parents pulled them home. This virus is freaking everyone out."

Another student nodded. "I heard the death count is like a couple hundred thousand."

Linzie raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Okay, I guess they fail then. Everyone have pencils, calculators and cheat sheets? Everything else up against the wall. Welcome to your Fluid Mechanics Final, Spring Semester at Auburn University. You can start when everyone has a test sheet. Please remember to show all work. I ain't too good for partial credit."

* * *

><p>Skylar did not look good, the blonde boy was just staring down at his paper, and she wasn't sure, but he hadn't moved recently, no writing, no clicking away at his calculator. She rubbed a hand over her face. One hour into the two and a half hour test period and she already had a student that looked like he was going to be sick.<p>

"Doctor Lawrence?"

She looked up at the student two seats to the right of Skylar. "Yeah."

"I think we need a doctor or something. Skylar looks really sick."

She nodded and pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. "I'll call. Go back to your tests everyone."

She called the med clinic on campus and got a busy tone. although not unusual, it did present a problem. Mentally she was debating the merits of calling 9-1-1 for a sick student, when she heard an unhealthy gurgling sound come from behind her. She was dialing for the ambulance even as she turned.

Skylar was standing, the other students looking on wearily as he shuffled out of the row or desks.

"Hey Skylar man... You ok?" John, the student in front of him ventured a worried whisper.

Skylar still hadn't said anything and again he barely reacted, his head down against his chest, lolling off to the side.

Linzie started up the stairs towards him. "Hey kiddo. You ok?"

Skylar lifted his head slowly and she backed up immediately, the scraping sound of desks shoving back, following. His eyes are all wrong. What had once been a pretty blue, were now clouded over and dead. Linzie scrambled back another couple steps and John shoved up from his desk.

Skylar snarled, his throat making a noise that no human should ever be able to make and lunged at the boy below him. John let out a vile scream as Skylar's teeth sunk into his neck.

Linzie made to rush forward but one of her students caught her around the waist and pulled her roughly from the room.

* * *

><p>"Fuckin' shit." Linzie threw her old, black jeep into reverse and backed into her garage. she checked the garage to make sure nothing had crept in while she had been away and hit the garage door opener. As the door creaked down, she pulled her small frame Smith and Wesson out of the glove box. It may not a particularly large gun, but anything she hit with it wasn't getting back up. She was going to make sure of it.<p>

She entered her house through a connecting door slowly, utilizing every bit of gun training her father had taught her.

There!

She turned towards the movement and aligned her gun with the target only to sigh and drop the gun. Her bloodhound, Cooper, padding over to her softly whining.

"It's okay, boy, we're gonna beat feet soon, 'kay?" His droopy eyes regarded her silently and she

patted him on the head.

After checking every room in the small house, she flew into a fury of activity; packing coolers full of last season's hunting game: wild turkey from the spring, even some gator from her special birthday hunting trip. She packed the cooler full of ice and duct taped it closed and muscled it out into the back of her jeep. Next she packed all of the other food items in her kitchen, including canned goods, dog food and her tornado season supply of bottled water. Next came clothing, toiletries and what little medicine she had, cleaning supplies, hunting and backpacking gear.

Anything and everything she thought she would need.

Last but certainly not least she unlocked her gun cabinet, loading multiple scoped hunting rifles into a large black gun bag. She made a detour to where she kept her ammunition and loaded that into the bag as well, before taking a large gun case out from under her bed and opening it.

Inside lay a .50 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, she grabbed the ammo for it and loaded it quickly and shoved a handful in her pockets. Shoving this box with the rest of her ammo, She left her bedroom and made for the garage. Above her front door on a decorative gun rack, sat an old Browning double barrel shotgun she had bought on a whim. She grabbed it and opened the door to her garage, Cooper hot on her heels.

The thing was older than her thirty years and the last time she had tried to fire it, the damn thing had misfired and given her a pretty burn scar on her left hand. But it was heavy and worse come worse, anything she got a solid hit on wouldn't be getting back up.

"Let's get the hell outta here, boy." Cooper hopped into the car and she closed the door behind him. When her own door was closed and locked, her .50 cal on the center console between them, she opened the garage and tore out of her driveway toward I-85.

Toward Atlanta.

* * *

><p>She was outside of Newnan, stopped in wall-to-wall traffic, everyone from the smaller surrounding towns and cities fleeing to Atlanta, when an old, faded truck with a chopper propped up in the back, rattled to a stop beside her jeep.<p>

Seated inside were two men, Good Ol' Boys like her Daddy had been, the kind of guys that you wanted to stick to in times like this. It was almost comforting to see if she was honest.

The older one, behind the steering wheel whistled lowly. "Well lookit there, lil' Brother. Can you use that gun, girly?" He nodded at the shotgun on the dash. "Seems like an awful lot of gun for such a tiny scrap of woman, don't it, Daryl?"

'Daryl' nodded, eyes flickering over her nondescript muddy-red hair and blue eyes, but remained silent.

She nodded her head, smirking with just a tad of sarcasm. "Afternoon, boys." Her accent thickened in the face of their country drawls. Like comin' home.

"What about the .50 cal? That's a serious weapon there, girly."

"That's why I bought it." She paused and reached for a pack of cigarettes. Tapping out a Turkish blend Camel, she brought it to her lips and lit it. Exhaling slowly, she continued. "I like knowin' that anything I shoot with it, ain't gettin' back up. Disease or no disease."

The older man laughed uproariously, earning some dirty looks from people in other cars. "Sounds like our kinda woman! Say, what's your name, girly?"

"Linzie Lawrence and this:" She patted her whining dog on the head, "is Cooper. You boys got names?"

"Merle and Daryl Dixon." Merle mock-saluted her and Daryl nodded slightly. "Where you from?"

"Vernon, Alabama."

Daryl's forehead furrowed. "Wasted buncha gas comin' this way then. Shoulda come into Atlanta on 20."

"I live in Auburn. I'm a professor there."

"Professor?" Another scowl. "You a Auburn fan?"

She nodded and took another drag on her cigarette. "You a Georgia fan?" He nodded back and she smiled smugly. "How about this pass year's game, then?"

"Auburn cheated and you know it, buncha thugs, starting fightqs and shit." Daryl was sour.

"Bull shit. Georgia always plays dirty and you know that." She stuck her tongue out and flicked some ashes on the ground. "So where are you boys from?"

"Centralhatchee, Georgia."

She sat up straighter. "Centralhatchee, really?"

Daryl nodded.

"I got family up there! You know Jeremiah Lawrence and-"

Merle let out a sudden crack of laughter. "Boomer? Boomer Lawrence is your kin?" He jabbed a thumb in Daryl's direction. "Daryl 'n that fucker used to run wild together when they were younger."

She grinned. "Yeah, he's my cousin. Do you know how they are?"

"Got the hell outta Dodge soon as we could." Daryl shrugged. "Most people were still tryin' to figure out what was goin' on. Seems you got out early to."

She nodded. "I left as soon as I saw one of my students go at the jugular of another student." She smiled shakily. "Guess the final exam was too much for 'em. You two headin' out to Atlanta, too?"

Merle shrugged, laughing before honking the horn obnoxiously. "Depends on whether this damn fuckin' traffic ever goes anywhere."

She nodded and focused ahead. "Amen to that, brother." There was a sudden flurry of activity up ahead and she blew out a smoke ring idly. "Looks like they're clearing the road."

Daryl nodded and Merle pulled over. Linzie did the same, pulling in behind the brothers' truck. She stepped out of the jeep, stuffing her revolver into her waistline, and let Cooper out behind her, telling him to go to the bathroom. Daryl and Merle met her on the other side of the truck.

"Ya mind Turkish tobacco?" She offered each man a cigarette and then a lighter and turned back to watch the activity up ahead. There seemed to be some sort of fight breaking out, some people were running this way and that. She thought she saw some tell-tale blue flashes and shrugged.

* * *

><p>Daryl watched the smoking woman out of the corner of his eye. She was pretty enough, a blue-eyed ginger, freckles and all. She was on the short side, no taller than 5'4" and maybe she carried a bit more weight on her ass and thighs than most women would be comfortable with, but she looked healthy.<p>

A corn-fed Alabama belle, with nicotine stains on her fingers and a whole lotta 'I don't give a fuck' on her face.

Her dog plodded over them and settled himself in between her feet, before regarding them with an almost polite, patient look.

"Nice dawg." Daryl nodded at the large bloodhound. "Well-trained, hasn't made a peep yet."

She smiled and fluffed the dog's ears, warmth leaking into her face for the first time since he met her. "Cooper here has been with me for three years now. He's a good boy."

"He trained to hunt?"

She nodded. "He's trained to track big game mostly. Deer, the occasional hog."

He nodded and focused on the mob that seemed closer and closer each time he looked up. "I don't think they're clearing the road."

Merle nodded. "Me neither."

Linzie pulled out her revolver, checked the chamber out of habit, and pulled back the hammer.

Merle chuckled. "How many times have you smacked yourself in that pretty mouth with that thing?"

She smiled indulgently, having dealt, hell having grown up, with plenty of Merle's ilk. "My daddy taught me my way around guns. I ain't ever smacked myself in the mouth."

Daryl pointed to the burn on her left hand. "What about that?"

She examined the injury and held it up for them to see. "That old double barrel misfired the first time I tried shooting it. My only shooting injury to date." She smiled self-consciously. "Shot detonated in the barrel, had to replace it."

"Ready to fire now?" Daryl looked like he was considering grabbing it as he eyed the road.

"Should be. There's ammo in the black bag on the floor."

"Should be?"

She blew out a smoke-ring and shrugged. "Been a long semester, haven't been able to take it out to a range to test it." She grinned at him, a slow, challenging grin. "If'n you're scared, I can test it out for you."

He shrugged noncommittally; wasn't 'bout scared, you just don't fuck around with guns.

They lapsed into a companionable silence, puffing away on their cigarettes, watching the road. Suddenly the mob became more visible in the jungle of cars. They were advancing steadily and carrying guns, stopping at every car along the way.

"Military." Merle leaned forward, stepping off the jeep they were leaning on. "Are they-"

There were several loud pops and muzzle flashes as the military unloaded into the cars.

Merle nodded to himself. "Yep."

"Time to go, gents. Nice meeting you."

* * *

><p>Hell of a time for that stupid old alternator to give out. Linzie leaned her head back against the edge of the open center window and felt Cooper sniff at her hair from his place in the now crowded bed of the truck. Daryl was driving now, winding their way to Atlanta on back roads and county highways.<p>

She was fortunate that they had taken her in when her jeep wouldn't start.

In that quiet way of his, Daryl had immediately gotten out and barked at her to pop the back door. She did so and by the time she had figured out what was going on and had gathered all the shit she had in the front of the jeep, Merle and Daryl had all the rest of her supplies stacked in the bed of the truck and were telling her to: "Git the hell in the truck, Woman!"

She jumped lightly when Merle snored especially loudly.

"What'd you teach?"

She turned towards Daryl, who was regarding her out of the corner of his eye. "Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics."

Daryl's eyebrow quirked and he frowned. "Wha'?"

She smirked slightly. "I'm a mechanical engineering professor. Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics study the effect engines and machines have on heat and fluids and visa versa. I do most of my research on combustion engines. I _was_ working on synthetic oils and fuel efficiency, hoping to find a lubricant that could make engines more efficient, run cooler, maybe even cleaner." She lit a cigarette and offered him one.

Daryl looked suspicious and puffed on his cigarette. "You one of those tree-huggers? Can't leave well enough alone, want to ruin engines with ya fancy fuels?"

She snorted. "'Fraid not, I just like engines. They don't talk back." She smiled ruefully. "Seems like a waste of time now though...an awfully expensive waste of my time... "

Merle shifted next to her. "Your daddy didn't pay for it?" The was a blatant note of sarcasm to his sleep-rough voice.

"My daddy was a mechanic, made minimum wage just like all the other mechanics in Vernon." She shrugged and puffed away. "Got lucky and got a scholarship for my undergrad, but my master's and doctorate came out of my bank's pocket." She smiled sarcastically. "Upside to the apocalypse: I'm not in debt anymore."

Daryl chuckled.


	2. 2

_**To be clear, I really like Lori and the other camp women, I think they are awesome, but I can imagine that Linzie probably would not like them at first judgement. Also thanks so much for the reviews and how quick they came! Y'all are awesome!**_

_**2**_

Linzie sucked on her third cigarette in ten minutes, her hands shaking as she fought to keep the cigarette steady against her lips. She might have been imagining it but she could smell the napalm in the air with every bright flash of light igniting over Atlanta.

"Your name was Linzie right?" Linzie slowly swung her head towards the soft, southern voice, the same _genteel_ accent her mother had had. It annoyed the royal fuck outta her.

"Lori, right? Whadya want?" Something in her refused to smooth out her accent in the face of a real Southern belle. Some call it pride.

Lori nodded and gestured vaguely to some ten feet back where Merle and Daryl were standing by the truck. Cooper sat in between them, apparently the dog had taken a shine to them. "I was wonderin' how you knew those gentlemen?"

The dark-haired man nodded. "You don't seem like the type-"

"What type is that.. Shane, was it?" Linzie dropped her cigarette butt and stubbed it out with the toe of her steel-toe.

As she reached for her pack of cigarettes, Shane made a choking sound. "You know what type I mean. And would you please quit smoking?"

Linzie smiled sharply and pulled out her empty pack. "Since you asked so nicely... 'Sides I think second hand smoke is the least of our worries nowadays."

"You didn't answer my question, ma'am."

Linzie glared at him. "Well, _Officer_, earlier today when the troops were marching down 85 shooting at everything: living, dead, and otherwise, my jeep didn't start and the Dixons were kind enough to get me outta that situation." With that Linzie turned on her heel and made towards the truck.

Merle had found the couple cartons of cigarettes she had bought on her way out of Auburn. Gesturing at the still staring couple he grunted. "Problem, Lil Bit?"

Linzie made a face at the name, the day had started with little inappropriate nicknames, Babe, Sugartits, but Lil Bit, that was new. Hell though, not like she could complain, damn sight better than Sugartits...

She shrugged and motioned for the now half-empty pack, the Dixon boys had been busy. "Ran outta cigarettes." She lit one and hopped up onto the tailgate of the truck. "So what now?"

Daryl reached for a map in the bed of the truck. "There's an old quarry about twenty, twenty-five miles outta Atlanta on the north side. I say we set up there."

Merle nodded. "Close enough to Atlanta for necessary scavenging but far enough away that the hunting should still be good."

Linzie blew out a smoke ring. "Plenty a' water too."

Merle stood up straight and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "There a problem, _Officer?"_

"You said you were heading up to that old limestone quarry?"

Linzie snorted. _Guess we aren't that bad, huh? Or maybe they just aren't too good to mooch._

Daryl regarded them quietly. "Yeah, so?"

Shane got quiet, rubbing at the back of his neck like a child. "I have guns and ammo."

Merle chuckled. "And?"

"We could band together, protect each other."

"What's in it for us?"

* * *

><p>She leaned up, standing on her tip-toes atop a precariously placed bucket and chair combo. As she arranged the over-hanging tarp, her dirty, grey tank top rode up and her cut-off shorts rode low, revealing not only the belly-button ring he had seen before but the little Dixie flag tattooed low on her hip.<p>

He watched silently as they neared her. A couple weeks of very little food was showing, her limbs had thinned, her belly flattened.

"Ladybird! Wha' are ya doin'?"

Linzie looked over her shoulder at Daryl and Merle and grinned widely. "It's a shower!"

Daryl just raised an eyebrow, examining the tarp-and-tube contraption she was hanging in the tree. She turned too fast and a split second later, he plucked her off the toppling bucket. He set her down and she smiled at him.

"See? The rain collects here," she pointed to the tarp bowl some five feet above their heads and continued: "and flows out of this tube here." She wiped her hands on her shorts. "If nothin' else we can cook with the rainwater. No dirtier than what's in the quarry or out in that creek you found."

Merle chuckled. "They teach you this one in school, Ms. Doctorate?"

Linzie smirked. "I had a professor that used to tell me that engineering is just a fancy name for problem solvin' and to think differently is just plain arrogance."

"D'ya think we could make it a _hot_ shower?" Linzie turned over her shoulder and regarded the young Asian man silently. He must be new, hadn't gotten the 'avoid the Dixons' memo yet.

"Yeah technically you could have someone pour heated water into the basin, but... uh they'd have to be up on a ladder while you were in the shower."

"Why is that a problem?"

Linzie chuckled. "The most effective way to bathe is to do so naked. Anyone up on a ladder's going to be able to see... well everything. Water wouldn't keep warm long in this tarp, so there would have to be someone up on that ladder almost the whole time."

The kid blushed and decided to change the topic. "They called you Ladybird. Is that your real name?"

She shook her head and shot an amused look at Daryl. "No kid, I'm Linzie."

He nodded. "I'm Glenn."

"Nice ta meet ya, Glenn." Linzie nodded to him and turned back towards the brothers. "Successful hunt?"

Merle nodded and jerked his head toward Glenn. Holding up the line of squirrels and rabbits, he grinned savagely. "Anyone ever teach ya how ta gut a squirrel, Chink?"

Glenn turned pale. "I'm Korean and uh, no... I think I'll pass though. Thanks for the offer."

Linzie smiled softly, almost kindly at the kid. "So polite."

* * *

><p>Linzie cursed and pulled one end of the radiator hose loose. Looking into the hose, she chuckled and leaned back. "Damn if this thing isn't leakin' like a sieve...Dale, was it? You didn't happen to mistake this thing for a snake, y'know try to kill it with bird-shot or somethin'?" At the older man's chuckle, she shrugged and looked up at Jim. "You don't happen to have 'nother radiator hose, d'ya?"<p>

He pulled a face, shaking his head. "I wasn't expectin' the apocalypse...sorry."

"What 'bout duct tape? That should hold at least until we can scrounge up 'nother one." She looked over at Dale and huffed when he shook his head no.

"Daryl!" He looked up from where he was, cleaning his crossbow near what had been termed, 'the Dixon tent,' snoozing bloodhound at his feet.

She choose not to tell people that it was her tent. They already thought she was the camp prostitute, she didn't need to add fuel to the fire.

He nodded, signalling that he was listening. "You got any duct tape?"

Merle cackled from inside the tent and popped his head out of the tent's open flap. "That's a fuckin' stupid question, Ladybird."

Daryl smirked. "Tool-box in the bed."

"Thank y' kindly, dear." Linzie marched towards the truck she was starting consider hers at least in part and popped down the tailgate.

She was about to swing herself up on the gate, when she felt hands close over her hips, a second later she was airborne and another second later she was standing in the bed, looking down at a smirking Daryl Dixon.

"Git me one a' m' gun kits, darlin'." he patted her leg and she narrowed her eyes at him. _Darlin'_?

She shrugged it off however, and made for the heavy metal toolbox. Digging around the ratchets and wrenches, she located the gun kit quickly and dug for a few more seconds to find a large roll of duct tape. Standing up, she closed the tool-box and made for the tail-gate where Daryl was petting Cooper behind the ears. He looked up when she approached and reached for the gun kit, throwing an arm around her waist and pulling her from bed.

As he set her down, and she regarded him quietly. "I can jump down all on my lonesome, y'know. Don't need no big tough man to rescue me from truck beds."

A strange look passed over his face and he smirked. "So what do you need rescuin' from, Ladybird?"

Linzie arched an eyebrow and gestured vaguely towards the band of gossiping women making their way down to the quarry lake, a coy smile on her face. "You can save me from the Southern Housewife Committee... if ya dare."

He actually scowled. "They been botherin' you? Really?"

She shrugged, not entirely comfortable with the sudden serious turn in the conversation. "They steer pretty clear of me... for fear that I might corrupt their children."

Daryl cussed under his breath and made for the tent and Linzie grabbed his arm. "Hey, don't worry 'bout it. I've been dealin' with their kind all my life." She shrugged and ventured a small smile. "I'm well-equipped for it."

She shrugged again and turned back towards the RV.

"Linzie." She turned back and smiled softly at Daryl. "Whadya mean?"

She hummed, confused.

"You've been dealin' with their kind-"

She cut him off. "My daddy was the no-count mechanic that knocked up the judge's daughter and I was the result..."

"Linzie!"

She looked over at Dale and Jim and smiled, holding up the duct tape. "Success, gentlemen."

When she looked back, Daryl was already back at the tent and Cooper sat in front of her, looking at her patiently, his tail thumping back and forth.

"Ms. Lawrence?"

Linzie started and looked off to the side at the boy... Carl, Lori's son. "Linzie's fine, kid."

"Ms. Linzie."

She smiled and nodded, squatting down so she was more level with the boy. "Yep?"

"Can I play with Cooper?"

Linzie blinked. "I don't think your mom would like that too much."

"Why?" Carl looked really confused, and reached a hesitant hand out to Cooper, who pushed his big wet nose into Carl's hand, snuffling loudly. Carl giggled and grinned, rubbing Cooper's head and playing with the wrinkles on his face. "Mr. Dixon said Cooper likes kids. He wouldn't hurt me, right?"

Linzie looked over at the tent and noticed Daryl watching the interaction and she smiled. "Cooper loves kids. He likes to give them big, slobbery kisses." Carl made a face and Linzie chuckled. "Yeah, but why don't you check with your mom before I say yes. Just to make sure."

Carl nodded. "Will you walk with me down to the quarry? My mom said I wasn't allowed to leave the campsite without an adult."

Linzie nodded. "Yeah, let's go do that." Turning over her shoulder, she waved at Dale. "Be right back."

* * *

><p>"Mom!" Lori looked over her shoulder at her son. Linzie stood behind him, shiny, silver revolver stuck in the waistband of her shorts, big dog sitting patiently at her side. Lori scowled.<p>

"Carl? What are you doing down here, son?" Lori stood from the wash and walked up the bank.

Carl came rushing down the bank. "I came to ask you if you were okay with me playing with Cooper."

Carl looked so excited that she had to force herself not to say yes automatically. "Who's Cooper?"

"Ms. Linzie's dog." Carl pointed back towards the big black and tan hunting dog.

"He's a hunting dog, sweetie... sometimes hunting dogs don't like kids. What did Ms. Linzie say?" She ran her hands over his head and leaned down.

"She said that Cooper loves kids," He leaned forward dramatically. "She said he likes to give them kisses. But she wanted to make sure you were okay with it." Carl was literally bouncing on his toes. "So please? Please?"

Lori shrugged and looked up at Linzie, who was smiling softly. "If she's okay with it, so am I."

Carl grinned and turned on Carol. "Mrs. Peletier, can Sophia play too?"

Carol nodded. "Sure."

Sophia stood from her spot next to her mother, doll clutched in her hand and reached for Carl's outstretched hand.

Lori smiled at her son and waved him off. "Make sure you ask Mrs. Morales if Louis and Eliza can play too."

Lori smiled and mouthed thank you at Linzie who nodded and waved back, waiting for the two children to pass her before following up after them.

"You know maybe... just maybe she isn't as bad as she originally seemed." Amy shrugged and turned back to her laundry.

Jacqui clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "She hangs around those Dixon men, how can she not be at least a little like them."

Lori shrugged. "They saved her, as far as she's concerned, they are the only one's she can trust...Besides have you ever heard her say one negative thing? Make one racist comment?"

Andrea snorted. "I haven't heard much from her at all. She's kinda standoffish. She doesn't really do anything with us, she does all of her laundry before most of us are awake... when it's her turn to cook, she never asks for any help."

Carol grinned, in that soft way of hers. "She's an engineer... she's just awkward."


	3. 3

_**Thanks so much for y'all's reviews! Y'all make writing enjoyable! Please feel free to review with any question, comments and concerns! **_

_**3**_

"Linzie."

Linzie drug the whetstone over her hunting knife slowly before looking up. "Yeah?"

Lori smiled at her and gestured back towards the quarry. "Did you have any laundry to do? We're going down to the lake now."

Linzie blinked and a second later a basket of laundry was deposited in her lap by a smirking Merle.

"Best get to it, Woman." Merle nudged her to her feet and pinched her ass. "I want my clothes washed, dried and pressed before dinner." He winked at her and she could hear Daryl chuckle off to the side.

She looked over her shoulder, still very confused and Daryl nodded his head towards the quarry. "Now git." He grabbed her knife from the seat she was sitting on started to sharpen it.

Linzie shook her head and adjusted her grip on the basket, setting up against her waist. "Whatever." She checked in the tent to make sure Merle had gotten all of the laundry and then followed Lori to the quarry.

* * *

><p>She walked slowly down towards the quarry, letting Lori walk ahead of her, feeling like she was walking into a lion's den... or a viper's pit... or something equally dire.<p>

Lori was playing the grand host and she smiled, ushering her forward. Carol smiled, stood, scooching over and patting the ground next to her.

Linzie skulked over to her and sat, pulling out her laundry supplies. She reached behind her and pulled the first piece of laundry out of the basket behind her. She cussed not quietly, looking at the large bloodstain in the center of the sleeveless button up.

Carol tsked and Linzie looked up, realizing that everyone was looking at her. She showed them the shirt and shrugged. "Daryl's clothes are always a bitch and a half to clean."

Andrea chuckled off to her other side. "They stick you with their clothes? They must be doing an awful lot for you..."

Carol could practically see Linzie's hackles going up, so she tried to dispel the situation, she put a calming hand on Linzie's shoulder and warned quietly. "Andrea..."

Linzie started to scrub at the stain, quiet at first and then she snorted. "Other than feed us... _all_ of us, just 'bout everyday, no I can't reckon they do much of anything else. Why, what were you implying?" Linzie sniffed and stared Andrea down.

Andrea chuckled. "C'mon, we're both college educated women, liberated women, if you have an arrangement with those Dixon boys, that's fine-"

"I ain't liberated enough to do what you're suggesting I'm doin'."

"So you expect me to believe that you sleep in the same tent with both those men, hot-blooded, normally functioning men as far as I can tell-"

Linzie snarled and cut her off again. "You can believe whatever you want to believe 'bout me and those men. But truth of the matter is you gonna believe want you gonna believe regardless of what I do or don't tell you, so why don't you just keep to yourself an' leave me the hell outta it."

Andrea huffed. "College sure didn't make you any less of a close-minded hick did it?"

Linzie stiffened. "Jus' outta curiosity, what did you git your degree in?"

Andrea smirked smugly. "I have a master's in Women's Studies."

Linzie chuckled. "Fuckin' figures... shoulda known."

"What does that mean."

"All your big-talkin' shit 'bout bein' _liberated_, all your complainin' about doin' _women's work_. I shoulda pegged you for a femme-nazi from the git go."

Andrea grit her teeth. "And what did you get _your _degree in? Argiculture, _Bovine_ science? Or maybe you went to a two-year technical."

Linzie shot Andrea's smug smile right back at her. "I have a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from a major accredited university."

Lori blew out a long, tense breath. "I never would have assumed you went to college for so long. Do most mechanical engineers need doctorates?"

Linzie turned to regard Lori quietly, like she was trying to decide if Lori was going to ride her ass too. "Not unless you want to teach."

Carol straightened. "You taught? Taught what?"

"Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics."

Lori shared a glance with Carol. "Are you good at math?"

Linzie shrugged. "Me an' the other mechanical engineering students used to joke that we had enough math or math-related credits to have at least a master's in applied mathematics." She scrubbed furiously at a different shirt and then looked up at Lori and Carol. "Why?"

Carol wrung out a shirt. "Well, you see. We don't want our children falling to behind in their studies. But Lori and I, we aren't going to be able to teach them math much longer, it's not like either of us were any good at math in school."

Linzie shrugged. "You sure you want me ta teach them?"

Lori looked confused. "Yeah, why wouldn't we?"

Linzie shrugged and glared over her shoulder at Andrea, grabbing another piece of laundry out of her basket. "Jus' figured is all."

Carol laid a hand on Linzie's shoulder and smiled before whispering. "I don't think for a minute that you are... well you know."

Linzie smiled. "No I don't know, what Carol?"

Carol blushed and stuttered.

Lori smiled. "No I don't think so either. Maybe the younger Dixon, but definitely not Merle much less both of them."

Linzie chuckled. "I'm not... you know, with either of them."

"Why?" Amy shrugged. "Daryl's not half-bad looking...He's got nice arms..."

Linzie smiled. "We have other more important things to do then screw, an' they respect me enough not to push anything too far."

Andrea chuckled sarcastically. "_Too far_? What's that mean?"

Linzie shrugged. "Merle's a unabashed flirt, but I'm used to it an' it doesn't bother me, that's what I mean."

"He treats you like a side of meat."

Linzie shook her head. "You got your head so far up your women's lib, that I'm surprised you can see for all that shit."

Andrea huffed. "I just can't believe that you would allow them to act that way around you. You are an intelligent woman, educated and yet you're still willing to live in a outdated gender-role with a pair of methed-out hicks." Seeing that Linzie was getting defensive again, so she changed strategies. "You're a hunter right?" Linzie nodded. "Do you ever get go hunting with them? Or do they just expect you to clean and dress their haul."

"I've gone a couple times, but too many hunters make too much noise and there are other things to be done around here."

"So you just let them delegate the work, with no choice in the matter?"

"I can say no..." Linzie laughed outright. "I ain't a slave an' they don't keep me chained to their ankles at night so I won't run away."

"I don't understand you!" Andrea made a dramatic splash in the water. "Why aren't you.." Andrea spluttered and made a frustrated sound in the back of her throat.

"More like you?" Linzie smiled almost gently and shrugged. "The world's gone to shit...All our expensive degrees don't matter beyond how hard we can hit something with it. What matters now is loyalty, sticking together as a unit so we can all grow old together." Linzie wrung out her last piece of laundry and put it in her basket. "And just so you know, I ain't ever seen Daryl so much as consider Merle's extensive drug collection." She paused and smirked. "And Merle doesn't want to run out of meth so he's working on his coke stash."

Carol made a little choking sound in the back of her throat. "Are you okay with that? With Merle doin' drugs?"

"He's a grown-ass man, he can do what he wants... As for my part, I normally steer clear when he's high, he has a tendency towards bein' grabby." Linzie shrugged. "Though Daryl normally keeps Merle away from me just as well, high or not."

* * *

><p>She wouldn't admit it to Andrea, but she did feel vaguely ridiculous doing Daryl and Merle's laundry like their docile, demure little wife. I wasn't that she felt like they were using her, forcing her into a gender role she wasn't comfortable with... it was just that she had never felt all that feminine before.<p>

She a certified mechanic and an engineer, she hunted and fished and bought old beaters to restore. She didn't cook or clean or knit or sew. She smoked and drank like a man, tended to slouch and cuss like a man. Hell she couldn't count on both hands and feet the number of times she had been told that she was one of the guys, that men were comfortable with her because 'she wasn't like other chicks.'

It was simply ridiculous that it took an apocalypse to make her feel like a woman. She chuckled and jumped when a big hand cupped her waist.

"Wha's so funny?"

She smiled and turned towards Daryl. "Just somethin' stupid, nothin' to worry 'bout. Merle go huntin'?"

Daryl scowled and nodded. "Among other things."

Linzie chuckled and pinned up the last sleeveless flannel shirt. "There, should be dry in a little bit with all this heat."

"I caught some deer tracks earlier, might take a couple of days to track."

She nodded and moved to the other side of the line where some dry clothes hung, she began to fold them. "You can take Cooper, as long as you keep a long lead on him. Might make it a bit easier."

"Ain't never tracked with a dog before."

"Copper knows how, does most of the work."

Daryl slanted a look down at her and grabbed the now full basket from her. "You could always come... make it easier to drag it back to camp, plus you got a silencer on one of those hunting rifles."

Linzie smiled brightly. "Alright, then." She took the basket back from him and set it inside the tent, then pausing to pick up her knife. "I should let you sharpen this more often. It's the sharpest I've ever seen."

"Ladybird!" They both looked up to see Merle swagger unsteadily into camp, a line of a dozen or so squirrels in one hand, a bloody knife in the other.

Linzie made towards him but Daryl caught her arm and swung her around. "Go git ready to dress those squirrels. I'll take care of Merle."

Linzie nodded and walked around their little campsite picking up a bucket and her newly sharpened knife and moved towards the campfire.

A couple of minutes later, Daryl sat next to her with the string of squirrels.

Linzie looked up and hissed, Merle had boxed Daryl in the ear, it was red and starting to swell slightly. "You ok?"

He shrugged and pulled two squirrels off the line, handing one to her. They spent the next couple of minutes in silence.

"Merle sleeping it off?"

Daryl grunted.

More silence.

"How old are ya?"

Linzie looked up from her growing pile of innards and regarded him quietly. "Thirty." She whistled for Cooper and set a bowl of innards down on the ground for him. "You?"

"Thirty-five." He smirked up at her and threw Cooper a nice hunk of leg meat. "You're daddy taught you to hunt right?"

"And my papa for awhile, though he fished more than he hunted." She smiled at him. "I assume Merle taught you."

He nodded. "My dad was too drunk most of the time."

"And your mom?" She reached for another squirrel.

His face shuttered and she automatically regretted the question. "She died when I was little."

She nodded and was not surprised when he reciprocated the question.

"You only ever talked about your mother that once. She still alive?"

"Hell if I know. When she got pregnant with me, my daddy offered to marry her." Linzie stabbed into the squirrel with more force than was necessary. "She told him that she had no intention of havin' some lowly mechanic's child much less marryin' one. My daddy begged with her, pleaded." She paused and smiled sadly. "When that didn't work, he went to the Judge, my mother's father and told him that she was pregnant, again offering to marry her."

Daryl grunted and swore. "Why? Bitch'd turned him down. Why bother?"

She shrugged. "Lost on me too but that was my daddy for you, honorable to a fault. Anyways, the Judge said no, but did say that he was goin' to force my mother to keep the baby, couldn't abide havin' an abortion on the family name, I guess." She shrugged. "My mother gave birth to me and made plans to put me up for adoption, but my memaw, she said she wouldn't have no stranger raisin' her granddaughter. When the Judge told her no, my memaw went after him with a shotgun, until he let her take me home."

Daryl grinned. "You must take after your memaw."

She smiled and nodded. "I'm rumored to look like a little carbon-copy of her. Same red hair, same blue eyes. My mother hadn't even bothered to name me so my daddy named me after my memaw: Madeline Louise Lawrence."

"Madeline Louise?" He laughed outright.

"My papa always called me Linzie, said that my memaw was Maddy and I was Linzie. I haven't talked to my mother or the Judge since then. Is it wrong to hope that they got bit and are now roamin' Vernon like a couple of vagabonds? Droolin' and gnawin' on squirrels and shit."

Daryl shook his head.


	4. 4

_**Thank you my loyal reviewers! You guys are awesome! Now for those of you have faved or put this story on your alert list but don't review... please! Tell me what you think? Anything, that randomly comes to mind when you read this chapter!**_

_**Also to encourage you I am starting a question game! This chapter: What is your favorite movie? I would ask who's your favorite actor... but we all know the only answer to that question is Norman Reedus!**_

_**Anyways please review and make sure you answer the question while you are at it! Enjoy**_

_**4**_

Linzie set her small collection of firearms on the picnic table across from Daryl and Merle with a clatter and sat, silently and intently setting out her tools, and opening her bottles of solvents and oils.

Starting with her revolver, she began the almost ritualistic cleaning of her weapons. It was cathartic, one of the only times she felt comfortable turning her brain off and just doing. She wasn't required to speak, to keep up the facsimile of manners her Memaw had taught her, she didn't have to focus on keeping her ever-present frown from her face. She just did.

She kept the revolver loaded, so the first step was to aim the gun at the ground and unload, double checking that there weren't rounds in the chamber or in the pipe. She set the heavy rounds down on the table with an audible thunk, took an old oil-stained rag from her kit and tied it around the rear cylinder entry. She picked a brush from her kit and dipped it in solvent, inserting it into the barrel of the gun. The brush twisted in her hand naturally as it followed the rifling on the inside of the muzzle-

"Kinda sexy...dontcha think, Daryl?"

Linzie looked up and met both set of blue eyes. "What?" She returned her eyes and she pulled the bore brush from the gun. She was still waiting for their response as she dipped a cleaning round in solvent and fed it through the muzzle. She looked up again and shrugged. "Whatcha lookin' at, boys?"

Daryl's eyes were on her hands, Merle's on her chest and she resisted the urge to pull at the neckline of her tank top. Starting a little pile of trash, she pulled the dirty cleaning round from the muzzle and reached from a clean dry one, repeating the process twice more. "Y'know... y'all are gonna make me blush."

Merle turned a flirtatious smile on her and Daryl gritted his teeth, making a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "There is something sexy about you cleaning that gun, Baby."

Linzie arched an eyebrow. "How would you know, Merle? You ain't watching me clean the gun, you're staring at my chest."

Merle's grin widened and she noticed for the first time since sitting down that his eyes were dilated and his hands twitching with unused energy.

"You got nice tits, Ladybird, can't blame a guy for noticin'."

Linzie chuckled and returned her eyes to the gun, cleaning the cartridges and the extractor pin.

"Wish you'd lemme do more than just notice though..."

Linzie's head popped up and she realized just how high Merle was and how tense Daryl was. Quietly she set the gun aside, she'd oil and polish it when Merle wasn't around... no need to prod the bull.

"No such luck, Merle." She picked up a hunting rifle and began to clean it only to realize how uncomfortable she felt now. She huffed and glared in Merle's direction.

Merle made to say something and Daryl had him up and frog-marching towards the tent less than a minute later. She heard yelling and winced as words like 'cock-blocking' and 'faggot' were thrown across the campsite.

A couple minutes later, Daryl came marching back to the table, expression stony, and sat on the bench next to her, motioning for the rifle she wasn't currently working on. The worked in silence, their backs touching as they turned opposite ways over the bench to work on the rifles.

"Which one are you takin' tomorrow?"

She jumped slightly, not expecting him to speak and the shivered as his deep voice vibrated into her back.

"I have a suppressor for the rifle you're cleaning, so that one."

He nodded, the motion causing his back to press just the slightest bit closer to hers. She shivered again and Daryl turned over his shoulder. "You cold?"

"Uh... no."

There was silence.

Sighing she set down the rifle and picked up the neglected revolver and dipped a cleaning round in oil.

"You ain't no cheap Centralhatchee whore."

Linzie blinked and turned towards Daryl, who was studiously avoiding her eyes. "What?"

Daryl huffed and glared at her. "You ain't no whore and I ain't gonna let Merle treat you like one."

She smiled at him. "Thanks Daryl, but I don't want to cause problems between you an' your brother."

"Ain't you. It's Merle's big ass yap and his fuckin' nose candy."

She shrugged. "Still, he's your brother-"

"An' he needs to learn to watch his mother fuckin' mouth... gonna get us killed."

* * *

><p>He would never admit it to her or to Merle, for that matter, but Merle was right. There was something sexy about the way her hands moved over the guns, efficiently with a sure confidence born from experience and practice.<p>

Man couldn't help but think what else she had experience with. What else she could do with those hands...

Hell he was a sick fuck.

But as he finished with the scoped hunting rifle in his hands, she was breaking down the old double-barrel. He set the rifle down and turned towards her watching as she began to mop the barrels. It took a matter of minutes and she was oiling the rifle. Quickly, those same, practiced, almost absent-minded movements capturing his attention, she reassembled the double-barrel.

She huffed and cast a look over her shoulder at the tent, where Merle was hopefully sleeping off his high. "I really don't understand."

"Wha'?"

She leaned back so she could check the little ring of people around the fire. "You don't need to be burnin' bridges with Merle for my sake. I'm a big girl and I've dealt with more than my fair share of men like Merle... hell worse then 'im. I won't be responsible for the deterioration of your relationship with your brother. He's all you got left an' I won't be responsible."

Daryl regarded her with an arched eyebrow. "People worse than Merle?"

She blushed and shrugged, decidedly not wanting to talk about it.

"What kinda people you have experience with 'xactly, Ladybird?"

"I co-oped in a factory when I was getting my undergrad. Thought I wanted to work in the industry." Her face was stony and she avoided his eyes.

"An'?"

"I met some men who weren't convinced that I was a mechanical engineering student." She fumbled around for a cigarette and stood, marching down towards the quarry and waving a hand over her shoulder. "I need to smoke."

She was gone before he could say anything, so he gathered the guns and slipped them into the tent before following after her.

She had taken off her steel-toes and slipped her feet into the quarry lake, ashing a cigarette into an old empty beer bottle.

He sat next to her and reached for the pack of cigarettes and the lighter in between them. She sighed and chuckled. "I figured those cigs would last me awhile, but you guys have smoked all my cigarettes for me."

"Wha' happened at the factory?"

"It's old news and what part of 'I got to smoke' didn't make it perfectly clear that I didn't want to talk about it?"

"I don't care if you don't want to talk about it, you're gonna."

"Screw you." She scoffed. "Why the fuck you wanna know, anyhow?"

He shrugged. "Just wanna know."

"They put me through hell any chance they got." Linzie shrugged. "They'd make me do the jobs no one wanted to do, stare at me all the fuckin' time, get real close tryin' to intimidate me. It was fine... I guess, no big deal, but when they figured out that wasn't gonna make me leave, it got nasty."

Daryl was gritting his teeth, his jaw set. "What did they do?"

"Staring turned to touching... They would try to corner me..." She trailed off, inhaling deeply on her cigarette and exhaling with a dry chuckle. "I'm on the short side of 5'4"... a good six or seven inches shorter than most the other engineers at that plant. How the fuck did I become the threat?"

"An' you just let them do it?"

She glanced at him and shrugged. "I told my supervisor, he told me to grow a pair, I finished out my semester there and started saving up for my master's." She took a long drag on the cigarette and stubbed out the butt. Exhaling slowly, she turned towards him. "And wha' 'bout you, Magoo?"

Daryl exhaled slowly, but didn't meet her eyes. "Wha'?"

"Wha's your deepest, darkest memory?" She shrugged and reached for another cigarette, not caring that she was rapidly approaching her last carton. "I've opened my chest.. your turn."

"Nope."

"Yep."

Daryl arched an eyebrow and grunted. "Why you wanna know?"

She smiled coyly at him. "Just wanna know."

He shurgged. "I spent two months in county jail when I was seventeen."

Her brow furrowed and she glanced at him. "What for?"

"Surprised, Lil' Bit?" He sent her a hard stare. "Thought I was the good brother, didja?"

"I'd appreciate if you didn't try to intimidated me, Daryl dear." She sucked on her cigarette. "Now why did you end up goin' to jail?"

"Battery. Judge took one look at my last name and gave two months. Should have gotten probation and maybe community service, first offense." He puffed on his cigarette and shrugged. "He just stared down at me and smiled...said: 'So you won't turn out like your brother. Consider it a gift.'"

"Dickhead."

Daryl grinned at her. 'You don't even know what I did."

She shrugged. "So what did you do?"

"Beat the shit outta my dad."

She made a little gurgling noise in her throat and stared at him.

He shrugged. "Merle had taken me out that night, gotten me drunk. I came home and Dad was banging some whore. She left after a bit and my Dad started layin' into me. Screamin' at me... If I had been sober, maybe I would have just walked away, but I just started wailin' on him and I didn't stop until I heard the whore call the cops... She had left her coat or some shit." He sighed.

She nodded and puffed on her cigarette. "Was your dad ok?"

He shrugged and scoffed. "Got the hell out of there as soon as I got out of jail, moved across town, never saw him again. One of my dad's old flames told me he died of liver disease or some shit."

She pulled her legs up to her chest. "That's sad."

"Asshole's the reason why my ma is dead. Couldn't care less."

"Mr. Dixon?"

Both adults turned over their shoulders to regard the young boy.

"Daryl.. just Daryl is fine, kid."

"My mom wanted me to tell you and Ms. Linzie that it was time for dinner."

Linzie stubbed out her cigarette and stood. Daryl close on her heels.

* * *

><p>"Glenn's plannin' to go into Atlanta for supplies." Shane looked around the fire pit at the awkward ragtag group of people surrounding it. "Anyone want to go with?"<p>

Glenn's head shot up and he protested. "I go alone. In and out, just like always."

Shane shrugged. "I would feel better knowing you had at least some firepower...Daryl? How 'bout you?"

Daryl shrugged and stared down at the styrofoam bowl of camp stew in his hands. "Goin' huntin'. Caught deer tracks earlier."

Thank

"Linzie?"

Linzie made to answer but Daryl cut her off. "She's comin' wit' me."

Andrea snickered and Linzie flicked her off as discreetly as possible.

"I'll go." Merle had apparently slept off his high.


	5. 5

_**Sorry for the delay... I just could not figure out how I wanted this chapter to go! Thanks so much for the reviews! I got eleven this last chapter!**_

_**My favorite movie has always been Jurassic Park (I know, no Norm...) but I am also very fond of Boondocks Saints!**_

_**Question of the week: Favorite song?**_

_**Make sure to review and answer the question! Enjoy**_

_**5**_

The 'hunting' party and the 'scavenging' party left at approximately the same time, one with much less fanfare than the other. After patting Merle on the back and a mumbled suggestion that Merle should find some cigarettes, Daryl and Linzie slipped quietly away as Andrea and Amy were sobbing on each other and Morales was hugging his family.

No fanfare at all. Jim and Dale had patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and given Daryl masculine nods that seemingly meant something in the world of men. But other than that? Nothing.

The day started with enthusiasm, Cooper tugging hard on his long, hunting lead as he caught a scent. Linzie and Daryl kept silently behind him, crossbow and suppressed hunting rifle at the ready, should anything happen.

They stayed silent for the most part, a habit born from growing up hunting now necessitated by the fact that the dead could hear. Aside from a whispered directive or response, there was no small talk, the weather was nice, but remained un-commented on.

Just sheer uncomplicated silence, enhanced by the beauty of nature...

...but ruined by the fact that Daryl had a nice ass and she was noticing... a lot. And she had been noticing his ass the last five or six hours, along with his arms, the color of his eyes, the wiry way in which his shoulders bunched and rolled as he followed the trail alongside Cooper...

_Damn if it hasn't been awhile. But then, I've always been a sucker for a good-lookin' Southern boy... _

"Deer looks like it was heading back towards camp."

Linzie started. "Wha'?"

Daryl turned over his shoulder to glare at her from where he was squatted over the ground, the position did wonders for the way those old mechanic pants fit. "The Deer. It veered off the deer path an' seems to be moving back towards the quarry."

Her brow furrowed and she leaned over to inspect the tracks herself. "Musta caught the scent of a predator or somethan'." She looked up suddenly and caught Daryl's eyes on her chest. His eyes widened and he looked away.

"Com'n."

Blushing she followed, Cooper loping out ahead of them, excited as they followed fresher trails.

* * *

><p>Linzie cursed and tied the last corner of the tarp to the trunk of a tree as Daryl did the same. Sliding under the meager shelter, she whistled for Cooper. "Now he smells like wet dog <em>and <em>the trail's gonna be gone in the morning."

"And we're fuckin' soaked."

"Yep." She sighed and dug her cigarettes out of her pocket, making a disgusted noise and throwing them on the ground with a wet thwap. "And I've got no fuckin' cigs, dammit."

Daryl chuckled. "Gotta quit sometime."

She shook her head. "I've cut back, that counts for somethin'... Used to smoke a pack-a-day...more if I had a bad day." She smiled, still staring at the cigarette mush on the forest floor.

"When I was in high school, well before I dropped out, I used to steal my dad's cigs after he passed out. Hell I started smoking jus' to piss the old bastard off." Daryl smirked at her, catching her eyes.

"I started smokin' at my daddy's funeral... Needed to do somethin' with my hands. I was so busy coughing that I didn't have time to cry." She sent a rueful smile his way. "My aunt, my daddy's sister, glared at me the whole time. She kept elbowing me, motioning that I should put out the cigarette, but it was my daddy's last cigarette and I would've been damned if I didn't smoke it."

"Your aunt took you in?"

She shrugged. "Supposed to, but I didn't want to move, she lived in Dodge City... I stayed in Vernon and finished out school, my daddy's boss gave me a job at the custom garage he owned and my daddy's best friend would drop by every once and awhile... became my guardian."

"How'd your dad die?" Daryl watched her face, noticing how the anger darkened her face and furrowed her brow.

"He got shot."

Daryl nodded and they lapsed into silence.

* * *

><p>"Stroke of blind luck."<p>

Linzie nodded as she searched the low-lying riverbed with the scope of her hunting rifle. "Ground was wet, buck musta got stuck on his way down for a drink, track's clear as day."

Daryl nodded and watched as Cooper snuffled loudly at the ground. "Think he'll catch the scent?"

She shrugged and they started to follow the deep tracks of the buck. "Depends on when the buck was here, I reckon."

"Tracks are sharp, can't a'been that long 'go."

They walked for a couple more feet and soon Cooper was tugging on his lead again. Linzie chuckled and both hunters began to pick up the pace. "There you go, Cooper! Good boy, Baby."

Daryl smirked. "Buck's still headin' back toward camp."

Linzie shook her head. "Still want to know why though, something musta scared him back thata way."

Daryl shrugged.

Linzie sighed. "We're still a day outta camp, lotta time to figure it out, I guess."

* * *

><p>Linzie scanned the area with the scope of her gun as Daryl let another bolt loose into the hide of the deer. Despite the injury, the buck scampered off, still moving toward the direction of camp.<p>

Daryl chuckled. "Won't have to worry 'bout draggin' that buck back ta camp, huh?"

Linzie nodded. "Deer's doin' the work for us, huh?"

Daryl nodded

_Snap!_

Both hunters' paused immediately and turned in the direction of the noise. Linzie had her rifle up and was peering into the scope when she cussed and hunkered down to fire. An almost silent second later she opened the bolt and ejected the spent cartridge, glaring down into the shallow embankment.

"Walker. Way too fuckin' close to camp."

Daryl nodded and cussed. "Only one though, not too bad all things considered."

* * *

><p>Linzie rested a hand on Daryl's shoulder and hopped down behind him, eyeing the group surrounding their-<p>

"Aw shit."

Daryl focused in on the small clearing and shuffled out of the brush catching their pant legs. "Sumova Bitch. That was ma deer!"

She entered the clearing hesitantly, wrapping Cooper's lead a couple times around her hand and noticing the look the other men were sharing as Daryl stormed up to the deer. "Look at it, all gnawed on by this disease-bearin', motherless, poxy bastard."

As Daryl landed a couple of heavy kicks to the formerly alive corpse, Dale sighed. "Calm down, son, that isn't helping."

Linzie headed Daryl off, standing between him and Dale, a hand to his chest, despite knowing that it would take a lot more than a half-snide comment to make Daryl hit the older man. "What do you know 'bout it, Old Man? Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to On Golden Pond?" Daryl turned away from her and she leaned over to tug Cooper into a seated position. "We've been tracking this deer for miles... Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison." Daryl yanked his bolts from the deer's side, motioning at the large hole in the deer's neck. "You think we can cut around this chewed part right here?"

As Shane responded in the negative, Linzie shot Daryl a overly-exaggerated disgusted look and eyed the new man, standing in the circle. If she didn't know better, she would've put money down on the resemblance between him and Lori's son.

Daryl stood and faced the circle of men around them, noticing for the first time, the tension in each of their faces. "That's a damn shame... Well, I got some squirrel, 'bout a dozen or so. That'll have ta do." Daryl motioned for Linzie to walk ahead.

As she walked passed it, the head of the once-assumed dead walker made a last bid at life, chomping mindlessly at her ankles. She jumped as Cooper let out a deep snarl, a bolt piercing the brain through the eye not a second later.

"Com'n people, gotta be the brain." Daryl retrieved the bolt and she felt his hand on her back, pushing her lightly forward. Casting a half-suspicious look around, he drawled a lazy, "Don't y'all know nothin'?"

They made towards camp and Daryl shouted for Merle. Once they were close enough, Linzie let Cooper of his lead and laughed as he rushed at Carl and Sophia, slobbering all over the poor kids.

She turned abruptly at the sound of Shane's voice. "Daryl, slow up a minute, I need to talk to you."

She marched up to Daryl's side as, he answered, "'Bout wha?"

"'Bout Merle." Shane wouldn't meet Daryl's eyes and she swore. "There was a problem in Atlanta."

Daryl put on a brave face, casting a look over the men gathering around them and pushing her lightly behind him. She squeezed his shoulder lightly as he paced forward. "He dead?"

Shane shrugged. "Not sure."

Daryl stalked forward. "He either is or he ain't."

The other man paced a couple of steps forward, with a ridiculous amount of authority. _Another fuckin' cop_.

"There is no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."

Daryl turned to face him aggressively. "Who're you?"

"Rick Grimes." Linzie's eyebrows shot into her hairline.

Daryl was getting agitated and Linzie stepped forward, putting herself in between Daryl and the newcomer. "Rick Grimes?" Daryl mocked, as he pushed her out of the way. "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed on a roof hooked into a piece of metal. He's still there."

Linzie swore vilely and Daryl took another step towards the two men.

Making a grab for Daryl's arm, Linzie felt Lori's hand close over her wrist. "Let them work it out."

Linzie shook free. "Does that happen before or after Daryl guts your newly-found hubby?"

"Lemme process this." Daryl made a vague motion with his hand and took another step towards Rick "You handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there!"

Rick hung his head as Daryl paced a couple steps back. "Yeah."

She rushed the men as Daryl pulled his hunting knife from his belt, got maybe half-way there when Jim wrapped an arm around her waist and popped her off of her feet.

"Lemme go, Jimbo!" Shane had Daryl on the ground in a chokehold and she fought to get loose, managing to do so just as Rick took the knife from Daryl's hand.

He was preaching about rational conversations just as Linzie's small, freckled fist landed on Shane's broad, block jaw. Shane let Daryl go and fell back with a shocked "Shit!" as both Glenn pulled her away.

Shane swore and Rick let out a hesitant chuckle before turning back to a half-stunned Daryl. "Now do you think you can have a rational discussion?" The question was half-posed to her as she shook the restraining hands off of her.

"What I did was not on a whim." Rick turned and regarded her as well. "Your brother does not work and play well with others."

Linzie regarded him with an arched brow and a smug smile. "Not my brother. Merle's my friend. A friend you fuckin' left on a roof... not much rational 'bout this."

T-Dog stepped forward. "Not Rick's fault...I had the key and I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl huffed heavily.

T-Dog shifted in his boots. "I dropped it down a drain."

Daryl scoffed and Linzie made her way towards him, pegging Shane with a smug look.

Standing, Daryl threw a fist full of dirt. "If'n that was supposed to make me feel better, it don't."

"Maybe this will: I chained the door to the roof, so the geeks couldn't get at him... with a padlock."

Rick nodded. "Gotta count for something."

Daryl wiped at his face impatiently and motioned to the camp. "T'Hell with all y'all! Just tell me where he is, so's I can go git him."

Lori was glaring at Rick when she interjected. "He'll show you, isn't that right?"

Rick nodded, shying away from his wife's eyes. "I'm going back."

Daryl nodded brusquely and he motioned Linzie toward him. "Com'n Ladybird. Let's fix that hand 'fore I leave."

Linzie walked over to Daryl and sat on an old milk crate in front of him. "I'm goin' with you, Daryl."

"T'hell you are." Daryl wet a rag with alcohol and dabbed it across her knuckles, ignoring her hiss. "Jus' me and Rick. In and out. No need for you to worry your pretty little head."

"Fuck you, Dixon." Linzie glared at the top of his head. "I'm goin'."

Daryl lifted his head and grit his teeth. "I said, 'No.'"

"You ain't my daddy or my man Daryl, you don't get a say in what I do." Linzie winced as he dabbed rather harshly at a tender area. "Did that on purpose, asshole."

Daryl grinned. "You stay here, do laundry or some shit."

"Fuck you, Daryl Dixon. I'm goin'."

"Better get your woman in check, Dixon."

They both looked up and eyed Ed. Linzie scoffed as Daryl leaned back over her hand. "No one asked your opinion, Peletier."

"Shut up, Bitch, no one asked you to talk."

Daryl growled and glared at him. "Keep to your own, Ed."

"Can't handle your woman, Dixon. Could teach you how, I reckon."

Linzie cursed. "That so. I'm real worked up today, Ed. Ain't a good day to fuck with me." She smiled smugly. "'Sides I already knocked one man flat on his ass today and you ain't no Shane Walsh. Probably wouldn't even crack a knuckle on your sorry skull."

Ed shoved to his feet just as Daryl reached for his knife. He sat back down and Daryl shook his head, shooting Linzie an amused glance. "You're a regular firecracker today, ain't you Ladybird?"


	6. 6

_**Thanks for all of the reviews! Y'all are awesome! My favorite song is 'Mustache Man' by Cake and this week's question is:**_

_**What is your favorite physical feature on the opposite sex?**_

_**As always review and enjoy! And make sure to answer the question!**_

_**6**_

"Why would you risk your life for a douche-bag like Merle Dixon?"

Linzie looked up and glared at Shane, loading her suppressed rifle with more force than was necessary.

Daryl stood and pointed the bolt in his hand at Shane. "Hey! Choose your words more carefully."

Shane nodded. "I did, douche-bag was what I meant."

Linzie flipped him the bird and Shane shook his head, ignoring her. "Merle Dixon...Guy wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dyin' of thirst."

Rick stared him down. "What he would or would not do doesn't interest me. _I_ wouldn't let a man die of thirst, _me._ Thirst and exposure. We left him like an animal caught in a trap...that isn't a way for anything to die, let alone a human being."

Lori cut in. "So you and _Daryl_? That's your big plan?"

"And me." Everyone's heads swiveled towards her and Linzie shrugged.

Shane bristled. "Now wait a minute-"

Linzie held up a hand. "Let me stop you before you go there, Shane."

"No way a woman's gonna go on this suicide mission." Shane rubbed a hand over the back of his head, ruffling his hair. "Now Linzie, you can shoot and I know you're tough," He smiled sheepishly, "I got that bruise to prove it, but there's no reason for you to go, risking the lives of two men is enough, without risking a-"

"Flattery will only get you so far, _Officer_, and I ain't one of your fan girls, so it ain't gonna get you you anywhere." Linzie smirked and flicked him off again.

Shane held up a hand. "I'm just saying that it would be in the best interest for the group for you to stay here. You're the only other one with real hunting experience... if Daryl dies-"

"Don't bother blowin' smoke up my ass." Linzie smirked. "If you were that concerned about hunting, you would be all for goin' and gettin' Merle, he has more experience than both a' us an' he's a damn good shot. 'Sides, I'm a grown ass woman and I will personally give myself a lobotomy if I ever decide to let you make my decisions for me."

Shane shook his head and turned from her as Rick turned towards Glenn.

"Ah come on."

"You know the way, you've been there before...In and Out, no problem, you said so yourself." He took a step forward and Glenn whipped his hat off of his head. "It's not fair for me to ask, I know that but I'd feel a lot better with you along." He gestured towards Lori. "I know she would, too."

Shane huffed. "That's just great, now you're risking three men and a woman."

T-Dog spoke up. "Four."

Daryl scoffed. "My day just keeps getting better and better, don't it?"

"You see anybody else stepping up to save your brother's cracker ass?"

Daryl continues to clean his bolts. "Why you?"

T-Dog wouldn't even look at Daryl. "You wouldn't even begin to understand, you don't speak my language."

Dale nodded. "That's five."

"It's not just five. You're putting everybody at risk, just know that Rick." Shane paced forward a few steps. "I mean c'mon you saw that walker...it was here, it was in camp! They're moving out of the cities. We need every able body and we need them here to protect camp."

Rick took a step back. "Seems like what you really need most here are more guns."

Glenn perked up. "Right... guns."

"What guns?"

"Six shotguns, two high-powered rifles, at least a dozen handguns. I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed. It's just sittin' there on the street waitin' to be picked up."

"Ammo?"

Linzie smirked, _Hook, line and sinker._

"Seven hundred rounds assorted."

"You went through hell to find us. You just got here and you're going to turn around and leave?" Everyone turned towards Lori and Carl, Lori was just on the verge of hysterical.

"Dad, I don't want you to go."

"T'Hell with the guns, Shane is right! _Merle Dixon_? He isn't worth one of your lives, even with guns thrown in." Rick started toward her and Lori stood. "Tell me...Make me understand."

"I owe a debt, to a man I met and his little boy." She turned towards Carl. "Lori. If they hadn't taken me in I would have dies, it's because of them that I made it back to you at all. They said they'd follow me into Atlanta, they'll walk into the same trap I did if I don't warn them."

"What's stopping you?"

"The walkie-talkie, the one in the bag I dropped. He has the other one. Our plan was to connect when they got closer."

Shane was sitting on the bumper of his jeep when he interjected, "Is it one of our walkies?"

"Yeah."

Andrea, ironically silent through this whole exchange, stepped forward. "So use the CV. What's wrong with that?"

"The CV's fine, it the walkies, they suck...they're crap. Date back to the seventies...don't match any other bandwidth...not even the scanners on our cars."

Rick turned towards Lori and already she was relenting. "I need that bag." He leaned over Carl. "Okay?"

* * *

><p>"You gonna watch Cooper for me?" Linzie squatted down in front of the small gaggle of children and smiled as they nodded enthusiastically. "Just remember to feed him some that left over stew from last night when y'all eat dinner and don't let him leave camp okay? If you take him down to the quarry, put him on his leash." They nodded again and she smiled and put the heavy leash in Carl's hands. "We'll have a math lesson when I get back. Make sure you've looked over your notes."<p>

They groaned and she laughed, ruffling each young head and scratching Cooper behind the ears. "See you in a bit."

She turned and joined Daryl at the back of the truck to a chorus of, "Bye Ms. Linzie!"

"You should stay an' teach them addition or some shit." Daryl lifted himself into the truck effortlessly and regarded her quietly.

She rolled her eyes and set her muffled rifle in the truck. "Fuck you, Dixon. We've gone over this already."

"An' I'm still not sure why you're so damn set on goin'."

She shrugged and boosted herself in the truck bed next to Daryl. "You an' Merle saved me, I'll do just about anything for your white-boy asses." She smirked at him and picked up the rifle. "That means you're stuck wit' me, congrats, you must be so pleased."

Daryl shook his head and smirked. "Whatever."

"Hey, Linzie."

Linzie turned and her brows drew down over her eyes as she regarded Andrea. "Yeah?"

"How is it that when you speak they listen?"

Linzie arched an eyebrow. "Who?"

Andrea looked up at Daryl then down at her feet. "The men... Shane... even Rick didn't argue when you decided to go with. When I-"

Linzie made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. "Damn it, Bitch! How many men do you think I'm fuckin' this time?"

Daryl looked up from where he had been studiously ignoring the conversation. "What?"

Andrea started and backed up a bit, looking between the two hunters. "That's not what I meant! I had to fight tooth-and-nail to go on that scavenging mission, you tell them you're going and they just let you."

Linzie shrugged and turned towards the cab of the truck. "I take a' myself... don't need their permission and I don't ask for it." She looked at Andrea over her shoulder and nodded. "I think they call it self-possession in the circles you probably used to run in...In mine, they called it being a bitch."

* * *

><p>"Damn... You are one ugly skank."<p>

Linzie chuckled as she crossed in front of Daryl, raising her rifle as he lowered his crossbow, scanning the area quickly through the scope of her rifle. She lowered the rifle and smiled. "You musta been a regular charmer back before the world ended, Daryl. You do say the sweetest things. Pro'ly the nicest thing that walker ever heard."

"You're just jealous, Ladybird." Daryl smirked at her as he leaned over to yank the bolt from the she-walker's eye.

Linzie hummed lightly as the walker's skull met the ground with a heavy splat. "And so gentle, too... You an' Jezebel will be so happy together."

Rick smiled as followed as Glenn led them towards the staircase. "Jezebel?"

Linzie shrugged and fell into step between Daryl and Rick, her rifle butted against her shoulder. "I didn't quite catch her name."

Glenn smiled down at her from where he was ascending the stairs. "Have you always been this sarcastic?"

"You've got no fuckin' idea, Chinaman."

She shot Daryl a look and the group quieted as they reached the top of the stairs and T-dog stepped forward to clip the chain.

Daryl burst through the door yelling for his brother, Linzie hot on his heels. As they rounded the metal grate stairs, the coppery smell of blood hit her full in the face and she swayed on her feet.

She staggered off of the stairs towards the bloody handcuff and sighed. "Damn it Merle." She could hear Daryl screaming, feel the slight breeze that he caused as he paced back and forth and felt sick to her stomach.

She jumped as Glenn laid a slim hand on her shoulder. "You alright?"

She nodded and fought off another wave of nausea. "'M Fine."

"I won't hesitate. I don't care if every walker in this city hears it."

Cursing she stepped up to Daryl's side and glared at Rick, as Daryl lowered his weapon. "We gotta find Merle, Daryl. We ain't got time for this shit. Blood's a coupla hours old, long enough for him to get it some deep shit."

"You gotta doo-rag... or somethan?" Without a word, T-Dog reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue bandanna. Daryl took it and shook it out as he passed his crossbow to her. He approached the severed hand almost hesitantly and knelt before it. He spread out the bandanna and picked the hand up by the pinkie. "I guess the saw blade was too dull for the handcuff...ain't that a bitch?" He wrapped the hand up quickly, huffing a little as he fought to hold his breath. Standing he motioned for Glenn and shoved the hand into the kid's backpack.

Given the kid's expression, he was none too happy about it.

Daryl reached for his crossbow and led them away from the still dangling handcuff. "He musta used a tourniquet...maybe his belt. There'd be much more blood if her didn't."

Linzie fell into step beside him as they approached a stairwell on the opposite side of the narrow roof. She offered him a small smile as the other's followed hesitantly, T-Dog pausing to pick up Dale's tools.

Rick slipped into the stairwell behind her as she checked the narrow service hatch above their heads. "You hold your gun like a cop."

Linzie snorted. "No need to insult me, officer." She smirked at him. "I hold my gun better than a cop."

Rick chuckled. "That silencer legal?"

She shrugged and jumped slightly as Daryl hollered into the stairwell, the echo bouncing back to them. "Does it matter now?"

Rick nodded. "No... 'magine not."

She moved in front of him and followed Daryl down the stairwell quickly.

They followed the blood trail through the building and into what had probably served as corporate office space at one time. They eliminated any walkers they came across one by one, including one particularly lovely lady whom Linzie dubbed Delilah. Glenn began to softly hum.

Daryl glared at him over his shoulder and the young man promptly stopped humming. "It's 'Hey There, Delilah,'... By the Plain White T's."

Rick arched an eyebrow and Linzie chuckled.

They entered another small office space, and encountered two dead-dead corpses lying in pools of old blood. Daryl sighed a little and surveyed the damage his brother had done. "Had enough in him to take out these sons of bitches...One-handed." He leaned over his crossbow and grunted as he drew the bow-string. "Toughest asshole I ever met, my brother. Feed him a hammer, he'd crap out nails."

Rick raised his gun and continued forward. "Any man can pass out from blood loss, no matter tough he is."

Linzie followed after the two men as they traced the blood trail into an industrial kitchen, they paused at the door and Daryl called out to Merle earning a swift reprimand from Rick.

Daryl brushed him off and continued into the kitchen. "Screw that, he could be bleeding out you said so yourself."

They followed the blood trail into what had one time been called 'the grill line.' Sitting atop a disgusting industrial grill was four burning catering fuel cannisters.

Linzie made a noise in the back of her throat and blew them out. Pulling the red shop rag from Daryl's back pocket, she picked up one of the less-bloody cans and shook it slightly. Sniffing it, she set it back down. "Butane. Not even half-empty. These things burn hot for about four hours tops and this blood is still really fresh. Merle can't be but an hour ahead of us."

Rick leaned over and picked up a grill press lying next to Merle's bloody belt.

Glenn swallowed audibly and stuttered. "What is that burned stuff?"

Rick studied the pad of flesh burned on the press and Linzie swore. "Skin...He cauterized the stump."

Daryl looked suitably impressed as if his point had been proven. "Told you he was tough. Ain't nobody can kill Merle but Merle."

Rick set the press down on the filthy grill and drawled, "Don't take that on faith... he's lost a lot of blood."

Daryl however had already lost interest in the conversation and was standing in front of a busted out window. "Yeah? Didn't stop him from busting outta this death trap."

They all rushed towards the window and Linzie chuckled, shaking her head and sharing a triumphant glance with Daryl. "Damn stubborn bastard."

Glenn sounded a little panicked as he looked over their shoulders at the fire escape. "He left the building? why would he do that?"

Daryl shrugged. "Why wouldn't he? He's out there alone so far as he knows. Doin' what he's gotta do. Survivin'."

T-Dog hung back and shook his head. "You call that survivin'? Just wondering out on the streets? Maybe passin' out? What're his odds out there?"

Daryl stalked towards T-Dog. "No worse than bein' handcuffed to a roof and left to rot by you sorry pricks." T-Dog had the good grace to look shamed and Daryl turned towards Rick. "You couldn't kill him. I ain't worried about some dumb dead bastards."

Rick puffed up and sighed. "What about a thousand dumb dead bastards? Different story?"

"Why don't you take a tally...do what you want. I'm going to go get him." He moved towards the window and even Linzie had to admit that the thought of going out on that street terrified her. She wasn't no Merle Dixon and that was for sure.

Rick pushed Daryl from the window and Daryl went off. "Get your hands off me, you can't stop me!"

"I don't blame you, he's family, I get that. I went through hell to find mine... I know exactly how you feel." He paused and Daryl calmed down. "He can't of gone far with that injury. We can help you check a few blocks around, but only if we keep a level head."

Daryl nodded. "I can do that."

T-Dog sighed. "Only if we get those guns first. I am not strollin' the streets of Altanta with just my good intentions."

Linzie chuckled. "Hell you couldn't have paid me to do that, even before the dead started to walk the earth."


	7. 7

_**This update took forever and I am so sorry! I also know that this story may be progressing slowly, and I can't really promise to go faster, because I write until I think the chapter is done, but thank you for your patience!**_

_**As for last chapter's question: I like big hands and broad shoulders...**_

_**This week's question: favorite season?**_

_**7**_

"You're not doing this alone." There was a note of finality in Rick's voice that drove Linzie nuts even as she respected the hell out of him for it. Hell, she was finding that she respected the hell outta Rick for a lotta things.

Daryl huffed and interjected from somewhere over her head. "Even I think it's a bad idea and I don't even like you much."

Linzie chuckled and studied the crude sharpie and linoleum tile drawing. "I gotta admit though, kid... you seem to know Atlanta like the back of your hand. I'm still not-"

Glenn cut her off huffing in exasperation at the three 'adults' nixing his plan. "It's a good idea, okay, if you just hear me out." He looked up at Rick and he sighed and he squatted down over th drawing. "If we go out there in a group, we're slow, drawing attention. If I'm alone, I can move fast. Look." He focused down at the map, placing two miscellaneous pieces of office garbage in one of the streets. "That's the tank, five blocks from where we are now. That's the bag of guns. Here's the alley I dragged you into when we first met. That's where me and Daryl will go."

"Why me?"

Glenn nodded. "Your crossbow is quieter than his gun." Daryl quieted behind her, and Glenn moved back over his map, placing a blue post-it sticker in the alleyway. "While Daryl waits here in the alley, I run up the street, grab the bag."

Rick seemed slightly appeased. "You got us elsewhere?"

"You and T-Dog, right." Glenn placed a pink rubber eraser in another connecting alley. "You'll be in this alley here."

"Two blocks away? Why?"

"I may not be able to come back the same way, walkers may cut me off. If that happens, I won't go back to Daryl. I'll go forward instead, all the way around to that alley where you guys are. Whichever direction I go, I got you in both places to cover me. At the same time, Linzie can pick off walkers that get too close with her hunting rifle." He placed a paper clip in the same alley as Daryl's blue post-its "There's a fire escape up to a small balcony that runs almost all the way around the building next to this one, Linzie will go there. Afterwards we'll all meet back here."

"Hey kid." They all swiveled to look at Daryl. "What did you do before all of this?"

"Delivered pizzas. Why?"

Linzie whistled and regarded the kid with an assessing eye. "How much math did you do in school?"

Glenn looked at the ground as he stood and walked passed her. "I failed Calc II."

Linzie smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Aww kid, you just didn't have the right teacher...You would have been a hell of an engineer."

Rick smiled. "You recruitin' right now, Linzie?"

Linzie shrugged. "Gotta rebuild civilization sooner or later, gonna need engineers to do it."

Glenn smiled and they all made their way towards the door.

* * *

><p>Linzie shouldered her rifle and followed Daryl down the narrow yellow ladder. She kept her eye on the rung below her feet and held her breath.<p>

"Lookin' a little pale there, Ladybird. What's tha' matter? You can shoot the rotting, moving corpses of the dead, but you don't like heights? Thought you weren't afraid of anything."

She grit her teeth and avoided looking down. "Shuddap Daryl." She squeezed her eyes shut. "T'aint the heights...it's the motherfuckin' ladder."

"Well looky there, Short Round... Madeline Louise Lawrence is afraid of ladders."

Glenn chuckled, not even bothering to correct Daryl. "Madeline Louise? That's so girly."

"Daryl Dixon, I swear on the Bible that if you don't stop, I will.." Her foot slipped a little and her mouth clamped shut on her teeth as she hooked both forearms around the ladder. "Shit fuck damn."

Daryl chuckled again and shook her booted ankle. "You only got a couple more first downs to go, Lil' Bit. And I know a big tough Auburn fan like yourself ain't 'fraid no first down." He outright laughed when she took a deep breath and unhooked her arms from the ladder rung, gingerly continuing down the ladder, whistling the Auburn Fight Song.

T-Dog giggled from above her. "Never would of guessed it, Linzie. You can fix a truck and a Winnebago...Clean a rifle, field dress a deer, but no go on the ladders, huh? And ladders being one of the simplest and earliest of human innovations."

Linzie swore again and Daryl reminded her, a smile in his voice clear as day: "First and ten, Ladybird."

Another twenty yards and Daryl laughed as he plucked her off of the ladder, followed closely by Rick and T-Dog. Whispering, Linzie glared at each man in turn. "That ladder has been bolted to that wall for years. Between the rain, summer heat, normal wear on the bricks, rust on the metal and the combined weight of four full-grown men and one woman, that ladder could have given way at any minute."

Glenn laughed quietly. "So what you are saying is you don't trust the _engineering_ that made that ladder and the wall it's bolted to or the anti-rust coating on the metal."

Linzie sniffed and made for the fire escape on the opposite building, muttering 'Another fuckin' ladder' under her breath.

Once she was in place and Rick and T-Dog had moved to their location, Daryl and Glenn approached the end of the alley way and the flimsy chain-link gate that closed them off from the Un-dead citizens of Atlanta.

Notching his cross bow, Daryl moved into position behind a dumpster and regarded Glenn. "You got balls for a Chinaman."

"I'm Korean."

"Whatever." Daryl nodded as Linzie signalled that the coast was as clear as it was going to get. "You're turn, _Short Round_."

Glenn took off outside of the alleyway, making eye contact with Linzie as she kept against the plate-glass windows lining the outside wall of her balcony, trying to keep out of the sight of the couple dozen walkers roaming the streets aimlessly.

Glenn was able to get the bag and Rick's hat with very little fuss and was on his way back towards the alley when she heard screaming. She kept an eye on Glenn even as she hustled around the balcony back towards Daryl's position. As she rounded the corner and Glenn cleared the street, she pointed her rifle into the alleyway. Inhaling sharply she aimed it at the back of one of the two Hispanic men currently curb stomping Daryl. "Stop or I'll shoot!" They both looked up at her sharply and caught sight of Glenn and the bag.

The heavier set of the two pointed at Glenn. "That's the bag, Vato! Take it, take it!"

As they rushed Glenn, one man already raising a bat over Glenn's prone form, she managed to fire a shot into the taller Vato, nailing him square in the shoulder. To the tuned of his half-muffled scream, she jerked open the bolt and reloaded before slamming the bolt back home. "Next time it's your head!"

Instead of slowing, the men pulled Glenn from the ground as an old, faded Crown Victoria squealed to a halt. They popped Glenn off of his feet and pulled him from the alleyway, Glenn fighting and screaming for Daryl's help. Daryl pulled himself to his feet and managed to fire an arrow into the ass of the fat guy, before rushing the gate hollering at them and attracting every damn walker in a two block radius.

As swiftly as she was able she made her way to the ladder. Closing her eyes tight, she flew down the ladder and made it to Daryl's side just as he turned on the young Hispanic man. She threw herself into his chest, pushing against him ineffectively. Enraged he pushed her off of him and made towards the skinny asshole like a freight train just as the young man was lifting himself to his feet. Daryl pushed the kid further into the alley roughly and the Vato stumbled back just as Rick rounded the corner, screaming for Daryl to stop and pinning him back towards the fence.

As T-Dog pulled the frightened kid to his feet and Linzie eyed the growing mob of hungry walkers nervously, Daryl struggled against Rick's hold, screaming and attracting yet more walkers. "I'm gonna kick your nuts up in your throat! They took Glenn! That little bastard and his bastard homie friends! I'm gonna stomp your ass!"

The gun rattled in her hands as she whispered emphatically back, only to be lost in the moans of the walkers. "Daryl, shut the hell up! The walkers."

"Guys, guy! We're cut off." T-Dog motioned frantically at the gate as both Daryl and Rick swiveled to look behind him.

Linzie eyed the mob again then eyed the gun bag lying not five feet from her. She hesitantly reached for it just as Rick approached her from behind. He motioned for it and pushed her lightly towards the ladder. "Get to the ladder."

She nodded and rushed past Daryl, pausing when she didn't hear Daryl and Rick follow.

Daryl and Rick were both staring down the mob and she let out a high-pitched nervous giggle when Rick stooped over hesitantly to get his hat.

Daryl however was not amused. "C'mon. Damn let's go."

* * *

><p>Linzie rifled through desk drawers as the 'men' considered what to do next. Sniffing delicately, she caught a scent other than death in the room and smiled brightly. "Success, gentlemen."<p>

Daryl shot her a dark look, probably for disturbing his brooding. "Wha'?"

"I wager that this lab employed a number of heavy smokers." She smiled wisely and nodded, rummaging through the drawers of the desk farthest from the staring group of men.

T-Dog huffed. "You're searching for cigarettes at a time like this?"

She shrugged and continued digging. "Too many cooks in the kitchen."

Rick chuckled slightly as she pulled two cartons of cigarettes out of the desk. "A very heavy smoker."

Linzie whistled and nodded. "Hell I only ever kept a couple packs in my desk at any one time, this guy musta smoked at least two packs a day. He's got good taste too. Virginia Blend." She strode over to Glenn's backpack and shoved the cartons into the pack.

"Those things will kill you, y'know."

Daryl muttered something that sounded suspiciously like: "So will running your damn mouth," and Linzie smiled sweetly down at the young Hispanic man. "Least a' my worries, kid. What's your name?"

"Miguel."

"Okay, Miguel." Rick leaned toward the boy. "Those men you were with...We need to know where they went."

Daryl started pacing again as Linzie took the other half of the desk next to Rick, her hands itching for a pack of cigarettes.

"I ain't telling you nothing."

T-Dog sighed heavily. "Jesus, man, what the hell happen back there?"

Daryl _snarled_ at Miguel. "I told you: this little turd and his douche-bag friends came out of nowhere and jumped me."

Miguel touched his split lip lightly. "You were the one who jumped me, _puto._ Screaming about trying to find his brother like it's my damn fault."

Linzie snorted. "If you hadn't been screaming like a little girl, _kid_, Daryl wouldn't have had to shut you up."

Daryl nodded. "And they took Glenn...coulda taken Merle, too!"

Miguel looked vaguely disgusted. "Merle? What the hell kinda hick name is that? Wouldn't name my dog Merle."

Linzie briefly considering stepping between Daryl and the kid, but Rick beat her to it and she found that as she was concerned, kid fuckin' deserved it. All the swagger in the world couldn't save you from an angry redneck.

Rick shoved Daryl away with a terse: "Daryl, back off!"

Daryl shot Linzie a look, that she wouldn't hesitate to call mischievous and walked over to Glenn's bag. Rifling through it, he pulled out a blood-stained bandanna and smirked at Rick. "You wanna see what happened to the last guy who pissed me off?" With that Daryl threw Merle's hand into the boy's lap and the advanced on him as he jumped out of his chair. "Maybe I'll start with the feet this time!"

Rick pulled Daryl off of the boy and this time Linzie stood and walked over to Daryl, chuckling all the way. She stopped next to him and smiled up at him, ready to intervene if the kid shot off at the mouth again. "You know, it's a scientifically proven fact that you catch more bees with honey."

Daryl shrugged, glaring at the kid, even as he offered her a hesitant smile. "Ain't interested in bees."

Rick calmed the boy and spoke clearly in what she was beginning to call 'Cop-Speak,' "The men you were with took our friend. All we want to do is talk to them, see if we can work something out."

The kid nodded hesitantly.


	8. 8

_**Sorry for the delay... Not only did I move and start a new job since I last updated, I also was having a hard time making myself write for this episode, when what I really want to do was write for this last weeks episode!**_

_**Anyways: I like Spring and Fall! **_

_**This week's question: Favorite character aside from Daryl of course!**_

_**8**_

"Linzie..."

Linzie looked over a freckled shoulder at Rick, her hands quietly checking her revolver. She arched a brow and grunted softly.

"I want you to go with T-Dog..."

Linzie's second brow joined the first and she turned to face Rick fully. "What?"

"Go with T-Dog." He sighed lightly and shot a look at Miguel. "We don't know the.._state_ of this group. They could be a family orientated group like our own... or you could be the first woman they've seen in three months." Rick shrugged. "I see no reason to uh..._tempt_ them to bad behavior."

Linzie sucked in a breath and nodded. "Yeah...'kay."

Miguel clicked his tongue petulantly against the roof of his mouth. "Ain't no way the Vatos would hurt a woman. We ain't rapists and shit."

Rick sent him a sharp look. "Just the same," he turned back towards her, "I'd feel more comfortable knowing you were out of sight, out of mind."

Miguel shook his head again. "She shot Jorge, no way in hell he's gonna forget."

Rick turned towards her, glaring. "You shot someone?"

Linzie shrugged. "In the shoulder... They had just beat the shit outta Daryl and were turnin' on Glenn. Couldn't just stand there an' watch... Plus I announced myself... told them I would shoot if they didn't back off. They didn't and I sure as hell don't bluff when it comes to guns." She shrugged again and Daryl chuckled.

Rick rubbed a hand over his face. "Yeah, you definitely need to go with T-Dog."

Linzie nodded and loaded her suppressed rifle then took a handful of .50 caliber shells out of her pocket. Turning to Daryl, she placed her revolver grip first into Daryl's hand and then passed him the handful of shells. She grinned. "Don't smack yourself in the mouth with it... or I'll never let you live it down."

He regarded her quietly then nodded. Pocketing the shells, he tucked the revolver into his waistband. She nodded towards T-Dog and they gathered up the extra weapons and left. As she rounded a corner, she coulda sworn she heard Daryl tell Rick that his was bigger.

* * *

><p>"So you an'..."<p>

Linzie sucked a deep drag on her cigarette and waved away the smoke, glancing at T-Dog. "What?"

"You an' Daryl..."

Linzie clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Not following."

T-Dog made a face. "Y'know I'm givin' you the benefit of the doubt, it's either Daryl or it's Merle."

"Or maybe I ain't fuckin' either of them." She blew out a smoke ring, glaring over at him.

"Look... there ain't no way-"

"That they ain't forcing me to fuck 'em both? Or maybe you think I'm selling myself for meth." She levelled a frank glare at him. "Which is it, T? Am I a meth whore or are they monsters exploiting my poor, fragile body for my resources? That's the only way it can be right? I either like what they are doing or I don't, either way they are doin' it."

T-Dog recoiled. "I never said that."

Linzie rolled her eyes. "'Course you didn't... You're too _polite_ for talk like that, but you don't have to. Y'all have been treating me...treating _us_ like the scum on the bottom of your boots since we met y'all."

T-Dog's brow drew down over his eyes. "Not like you haven't deserved it."

Linzie chuckled. "Really? What have I done to you?"

T-Dog tsked. "Merle's-"

"I'm not Merle." Linzie stared him straight in the eyes. "What have _I _done to you? For that matter, what has Daryl done to you? Merle's a racist prick, granted but what has he really done to you?"

"Merle hit me in a face with a rifle."

Linzie shrugged. "Okay then. So you have a reason to dislike Merle, but I'm still waiting to hear what Daryl and I have done to you."

T-Dog huffed and watched the courtyard below them. "Daryl's attacked us."

"You handcuffed his brother to a roof."

"He always says shit."

Linzie blew a raspberry. "Come on, T! Daryl barely talks to y'all to begin with."

"He calls Glenn all kinds of names!"

Linzie chuckled. "Okay so he does do that! So Glenn has a reason to dislike Daryl. Now what have I done? Go on, I'm waiting." T-Dog was silent and Linzie smiled triumphantly. "That's what I thought. Now why don't you think on that? The rest of you are as prejudiced against us as you think we are against you. For instance, Andrea hates my guts and aside from giving as good as I get, I'm still not sure what I did; Jacqui pretends like I don't exist and calls Daryl and Merle names under her breath. Doesn't matter that we have been supplying you with food, protecting you. Doesn't matter at all."

T-Dog looked skeptical. "You telling me that you and Daryl aren't prejudiced?"

Linzie shrugged. "We all bring our baggage to the party, T. It's just sometimes our baggage is more fashionable than what other people are carrying." Linzie sucked in a lung full of smoke. "As for whether or not me and Daryl are racist... I personally couldn't care less, wouldn't make it long in the engineering world if I did. Daryl on the other hand... he was raised to be that way for sure... though sometimes I suspect it's all for show... keeps people from getting too deep with him." Another careless shrug and T-Dog scoffed.

* * *

><p>"Well that certainly didn't go as planned." Linzie dragged a hand over her face, tapping the ashes off her cigarette and handing it to Daryl. Daryl took a deep drag and blew the lungful of smoke at Miguel. Linzie huffed a small laugh and elbowed him the ribs. "Leave the kid 'lone, Daryl."<p>

Daryl opened his mouth to say something and was cut off as Rick began to rustle around in the gun bag. "Them guns are worth more than gold. Gold won't protect your family...put food on the table." Daryl moved until he was standing across the desk from Rick and regarded him quietly. "You willing to give that up for that kid?"

T-Dog nodded, his head back against the chalkboard behind him. "If I knew we'd get Glenn back, I might agree. But you think that Vato across the way his just going to hand him over?"

"You calling G a liar?" Miguel glared at T-Dog and Daryl stalked towards him.

"You a part of this?" He landed a swift smack to the back of the kid's head, and Linzie reached out, putting a hand to his chest as he leaned over the petulant kid. "You want to hold onto your teeth?"

"Daryl... Baby, leave the kid alone."

Daryl drew back, eyeing her then turned back to Rick as T-Dog glared down at Miguel. "Question is: Do you trust that man's word?"

"No, question is: How much you willing to bet on it? Could be more than those guns... Could be your life. Glenn worth that to you?"

Rick leaned over the desk with a heavy sigh. "What life I have I owe to him. I was nobody to Glenn, just some idiot stuck in a tank. He could have walked away, but he didn't. Neither will I." He paused and sighed again.

"So you're gonna hand the guns over?"

"I didn't say that." Rick shrugged. "There's nothing keeping you three here. You should get out, head back to camp."

T-Dog rubbed a palm over his shaved head. "And tell your family what?"

Linzie took the burned-down cigarette back from Daryl and took the last drag. "The Southern Housewife Committee hates me already... No need to compound the issue by abandoning one of the husbands."

Rick looked at Daryl and immediately there was a flurry of activity as guns were loaded checked and then double checked. After loading her rifle, Linzie motioned for her revolver and Daryl shook his head. "You're staying here, Ladybird."

"Let's not start this again."

"I ain't letting you get your ass in trouble-"

"And I ain't letting the lot of you die without at least trying to help!" Linzie huffed and snubbed the cigarette out on her boot. "I'm a damn good shot, I can help."

Rick smiled. "Can't leave her here by herself, could get into even worse trouble..."

Daryl cursed and passed the revolver to her handle first. "You stay behind me at all times."

"Sure whatever."

Miguel huffed and stood. "Aw come on, this is nuts." Daryl pushed him back lightly and pointed to the kid's seat. "Just do like G says."

* * *

><p>"That's the white bitch that shot me!"<p>

LInzie leveled the revolver at 'Jorge.' "I don't like it when people beat on my friends..."

Guillermo approached Rick eyeing the guns then giving Linzie a quick one-over, even as Daryl shifted so that he was blocking Guillermo's view. "I see my guns, but they're not all in the bag."

"That's because they aren't yours." Rick shifted slightly. "I thought I mentioned that."

Felipe moved closer to Guillermo's ear. "Let's just shoot these asshole's right now, _ese._ Unload on their asses, _ese_."

Jorge took a couple steps forward. "I get the bitch first."

Daryl levelled the gun at Jorge as Guillermo waved them off. "I don't think you fully appreciate the gravity of the situation."

"No. I'm pretty clear." Rick cut the cord around Miguel's wrists and pushed him lightly forward. "You have your man. I want mine."

Guillermo set his jaw and stalked forward. "I'm gonna chop up your boy..feed him to my dogs. Three of the evilest, nastiest man-eating bitches you ever saw. Picked 'em up from Satan at a yard sale. I told you how it has to be! Are you woefully deaf?"

Rick settled his rifle against his shoulder. "My hearing's fine. You said come locked and loaded." There was a succession of clicked as Daryl, T-Dog and Rick cocked their rifles and Linzie pulled back the hammer on the revolver. "Okay then we're here."

Guillermo backed up and there was a shuffling from the back of the crowd of Vatos. "Felipe? Felipe?" called a frail, reedy voice as an elderly woman emerged from behind Guillermo.

With his gun still raised, Felipe half-turned to regard the woman. "_Abuela_, go back with the others - now."

"Git that old lady out of the line of fire!"

Guillermo turned to regard the woman as well. "_Abuela_, listen to your _m'hijo_. This is not the place for you right now."

She didn't listen, instead addressing Felipe. "Mr. Gilbert is having trouble breathing. He needs his asthma stuff... Carlito can't find it. He needs his medicine"

Guillermo huffed. "Felipe go take care of it, okay? And take your grandmother with you."

Felipe tried to lead the woman away, speaking to her soothingly in Spanish, but she seemed to suddenly take notice of them. "Who are those men?" Rick lowered his weapon and she took a couple steps forward. "Don't you take him! Felipe's a good boy." Rick stuttered out a 'ma'am' a she continued. "He had his trouble, but her pulled himself together. We need him here."

"Ma'am, I'm not here to arrest your grandson."

"Then what do you want him for?"

"He's... helping us find a missing person... Fella named Glenn?"

"The Asian boy?" She smiled. "He is with Mr. Gilbert...Come. Come, I show you." She began to lead them into the crowd. "He needs his medicine."

Sensing defeat, Guillermo huffed again. "Let them pass."

Daryl fell into step behind her and they both glared at Jorge as they passed, Daryl's hand landing lightly on her lower back as he guided her forward.

The woman led them into what appeared to a nursing home, past a number of individual rooms complete with old people being read to be young people and into a large main room where a small group was watching Felipe administer an inhaler to an old man in a wheelchair. There in the middle of the group was Glenn, decidedly unharmed.

Rick marched straight up to him. "What is this?"

Glenn looked at him the turned back toward the man in the wheelchair struggling for his next breath. "Asthma attack. Couldn't catch his breath all of a sudden."

T-Dog clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "We thought you were being eaten by dogs, man!"

Glenn arched an eyebrow and they all turned towards the corner of the room, where three Chihuahuas sat on pink and leopard print dog bed.

As one gave a defiant bark, Linzie cursed and a little blue-haired old lady glared at her. "Sorry, I didn't realize that Beverly Hill socialites had taken over Hell... Damn, if they wouldn't make a tasty breakfast for Cooper, though."


	9. 9

_**OMG These last episodes have been crazy! Anyways... I'm looking forward to writing for season two! Only a couple more chapters to go, I'd imagine!**_

_**Answer to last chapter's question: I'm stuck between Glenn and Dale! **sniff** :(**_

_**This week's question: Least favorite character and why?**_

_**9**_

Linzie huffed and cursed. "Ah swear if ah eva catch Merle's cracka-ass (an' he betta be back at the camp sittin' in a corner lookin' sorry when ah get there) ah am gonna beat him with the wrong end of the ugly stick and he's gonna wish he got really lost."

T-Dog guffawed, looking over his shoulder at the snarling red-head behind him. "I don't think I have ever seen you this angry, Ladybird."

"Yeah, well ah've neva had to run ma fat ass from Atlanta to the quarry before."

T-Dog smiled broadly, "At least your ass won't be fat anymore."

Linzie nodded. "Reckon not."

Daryl glared at them over his shoulder. "Will y'all shut the hell up? Your big-ass yaps are like ringing the dinner bell for any walker in the area."

Linzie huffed, almost pouting, and whispered. "Fuck you, Dixon."

Daryl turned over his shoulder and caught her eye briefly and whispered back. "You wish, Lawrence."

"Excuse me?" Linzie blushed and was quiet for awhile... at least until they got close enough to hear the screams and the gunshots.

"What the hell?"

They all paused long enough to glance at each other before tearing toward the camp like the devil was hot on their heels.

Linzie pulled her revolver out of the waistband of her shorts as she ran, falling into step behind Rick and Daryl. They entered the campsite at a dead run and immediately started popping rounds into what had quickly become their worst nightmare.

Linzie turned and fired into the small crowd of walkers surrounding what was once a large man, Ed Peletier perhaps, before stopping to reload, her hands shaking as she fought to get the heavy bullets into the chamber. She heard a vile snarl from behind her and managed to get the chamber loaded, clicked shut and the hammer pulled back in time to fire into the walker stumbling toward her. She stumbled back a bit and fired at another walker, when a hand closed around her wrist and yanked her back. Daryl's shotgun was lowered over her shoulder as he pushed her forward towards the RV.

She jumped as the shotgun went off, exploding the head of an approaching walker and as Daryl stopped and reloaded, still shielding her body with his, she raised her weapon and covered him.

As she reloaded, Daryl yanked her back towards the Winnbago. She was almost there when she heard shuffling and looked down at Daryl's feet. Trying it's damnedest to get at Daryl's ankles, was a walker who looked like it had taken buck-shot to the knees. Immediately she lifted her gun and fired, Daryl jumping and staring down at his feet then up at her.

Linzie shrugged and smiled shakily. "And you're worried about me."

Daryl glowered. "I am when you're pulling that Dirty Harry bullshit in the middle a' heard of walkers. Now get your white ass up to the RV an' stay there." He nodded back towards the RV. "We'll clear out down here."

Linzie nodded and made her way up to the Winnebago, shot down another couple of walkers, before joining Shane on the perimeter of the small gaggle of crying women and children. Nodding to Shane, she lifted her gun and shot at anything that got too close. Eventually she heard more shuffling and smiled as Cooper, a normally very mellow dog, set himself in front of her, his teeth bared and hackles raised.

"That's a good boy, Cooper."

* * *

><p>Linzie approached Daryl carefully as he yanked his pick-ax from the skull of one of the many bodies littering the floor. Catching his attention, she handed him a glass of water. He swished the first sip and spat it out to the side, before chugging the rest. He regarded her silently. "Don't go near the blond broad."<p>

Linzie arched an eyebrow and turned to stare at where Andrea was kneeling over Amy's body. "Andrea? Why? She been sittin' there all night, prob'ly thirsty."

"She wants water, she can git it when she takes care of _it_." Daryl's face was stony and his jaw set stubbornly.

"Daryl-"

"No. You ain't gonna git bit, because she ain't takin' care of business." Daryl leaned in close to her. "No."

Linzie regarded him silently and shrugged. "Doubt she'd take water from me anyhow... I'll give it to Lori to take to her next time she goes to reason with her."

Daryl shrugged. "Whatever, jus' don't go over there." Daryl looked over at Rick and shook his head. "Don't know why an' the hell they ain't done nuthin' 'bout it. Shoulda put a bullet in 'er head six hours ago."

"Jus' tryin' to let her mourn, I suppose."

Daryl snorted. "Ain't that nice."

Linzie shrugged and rubbed a hand over his shoulder before moving along the line, passing water out to everyone before taking the bucket and glass back to where Carol sat with Rick, Lori, Dale and Shane. She set the water down by Carol and moved to pick up a back-hoe. As she stood, Daryl came up beside her. "Y'all can't be serious.. lettin' that girl hamstring us. The dead girl is a time bomb."

Rick sighed. "And what do you suggest?"

As Daryl sneered at him and advanced a couple steps on Rick, Linzie stood to get in between the men. Shooting her a stern look, Daryl put his hand to her stomach and pushed her back gently. Daryl turned toward Rick and mocked his patronizing tone. "Take the shot. Clean in the brain, from here." He pressed closer and raised a finger to his temple then pointed towards where Amy lay. "Hell I can hit a turkey between the eyes at this distance!"

Linzie shook her head and turned towards Carol. "Look I know... it seems callous but it's gotta be done and I for one-"

"No." They all turned towards Lori and she sat, her eyes fixed on Andrea. "For God's sakes let her be."

Rick and Shane shared a look and Daryl scoffed as he turned to leave. Linzie sighed, shooting a look at Rick and Shane, and followed, passing both Daryl and Jim as she moved to help T-Dog keep the walker pyre under control.

T-Dog glanced at Amy, then back at her and they shared a look. "Can't imagine it'll be much longer."

Linzie shrugged. "Surprised it hasn't happened already... A student in one of my classes was infected when he came to take his final... An hour later he took out a kid in the row in front of him."

T-Dog nodded. "Probably different for everyone though."

"Yeah."

They both looked up as they heard Glenn raise a shaky protest, blocking Morales and Daryl from putting a body in the pyre. When Morales and Daryl put down the body with those of the other dead members of the camp and Daryl started hollerin', Linzie sighed and put down her back-hoe, scowling at the adults staring after Daryl with censure.

"I ain't no shrinkin' voilet and sure as hell, ain't no southern belle, but if'n y'all ain't the most insensitive bunch of pricks I've eva seen, I'll be fuckin' damned." Linzie swiped a hand across her forehead. "Glenn... Kid, I like you and I appreciate you going into Altanta with us to find Merle...but would you have protested so strongly if that had been Merle's body? Would you have choked up over him and spent precious time digging him a grave?"

Glenn's mouth worked soundlessly and Linzie nodded. "Lori, if Merle and Daryl were under that canopy, would you let him mourn or would you let your husband and Shane take care of it for him?" Linzie set her arms akimbo and glanced up as Daryl shouldered his pick-ax and looked at her. No one answered, so Linzie nodded matter-of-factly and picked up her back-hoe.

"A walker got Jim!" Linzie's head jerked up with everyone else's as she turned to regard Jim. She started to walk towards him as T-Dog restrained him and Daryl grabbed his shirt.

She gasped as the ironically perfect impression of teeth was revealed. "Oh damn... Jimbo."

Daryl stumbled back as Linzie took a couple steps forward, already feeling the fool for the tears in her eyes.

Jimbo was her friend, one of the few people in the camp other than Daryl that didn't fuss at her for how she walked, talked and acted. He didn't wrinkle his nose at her when she leaned over an engine, smoking with motor-oil caked fingertips, didn't tease her when her accent was thick enough to taste it in the air, or glare at her when she cussed a blue streak because she reached for a part before it cooled completely. Jimbo was a certified Alabama fan (despite living not 30 minutes outside of Auburn) and she couldn't count on both hands the number of mildly heated _discussions_ that came from a late night reminiscing about old football games.

Sweet, quiet Jimbo from Waverly, Alabama had a death warrant stamped in bright, angry red on his side and for the first time since this all started, Linzie felt how acutely unfair this world had become.

* * *

><p>"I say we put a pick-ax in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it." Daryl stood behind her, his knees pressing against her back as she hugged her knees to her chest.<p>

Linzie eyes rounded as she looked up at Daryl. "It's _Jimbo_, Daryl! Jimbo!"

Daryl glanced down at her briefly and then back at Shane. "Is that what you'd want for you?"

Daryl's hand landed heavily on her head and without hesitation, he answered. "Yeah and I'd thank you while you did it."

Dale sighed heavily. "I hate to say it, I never thought I would, but maybe Daryl's right"

Rick stepped forward. "Jim is not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog..." Dale tried to cut in and Rick spoke over him, "He's a sick, sick man. If we start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

Daryl squared his shoulders. "Line's pretty clear: Zero tolerance for walkers or them to be."

Linzie huffed. "I understand taking care of Amy... she shouldn't have been left like that... in Limbo, us waitin' to have ta kill her again... and I see the logic in... in _helpin' _Jim but-"

Daryl grit his teeth and Rick cut in. "What if we can get him help? I heard that the CDC is working on a cure."

Shane shook his head. "I heard that too.. heard a lotta things before the world went to hell."

"What if the CDC is still up and running?"

"That is a stretch right there."

Rick placed his hands on his hips and shrugged. "Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they? I think it's our best shot... Shelter, protection, rescue..."

Shane huffed in frustration. "Look.. Rick, we all want those things...I do too... if they exist, they're at the army base at Fort Benning."

Lori responded and Linzie zoned out of the conversation, aware of Daryl shifting restlessly behind her.

"You go get some aspirin.. do what you need to." Suddenly Daryl pulled away from her and rushed at Jim, pick-ax raised as he shouted.

Linzie lurched to her feet, feet slipped and tried again, this time making it successfully to her feet as Rick and Shane cut Daryl off, the former's loaded revolver aimed at Daryl's head. She stilled and watched as Daryl lowered his pick-ax and turned towards Rick.

"We don't kill the living."

"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

Shane nodded. "We may disagree on somethings, but not on this. You put it down."

Linzie strode quickly to the men and stood in between Daryl and Rick, pushing lightly at the revolver aimed over her head. "There has been enough fuckin' death today. Enough." Linzie grabbed Daryl by the arm and dragged him toward their tent.

_**A couple of people said they can't remember the question by the end of the chapter so here it is: Least favorite character and why? **_

_**Also remember to review! I have 90 people who get an alert every time I update! So let's hear it! Even if there's something you don't like about the story or Linzie's character, tell me so I can try to improve!**_


	10. 10

_**Y'all made me so happy! Eighteen reviews! Y'all keep it up! I was also surprised by all the Lori hating! I actually kinda like her. My least favorite was definitely Shane, he did nothing but instigate and fight with Rick. He said he wanted to keep people alive but the only people he cared about other than himself was Lori and Carl and that ain't right.**_

_**I hope you guys like the chapter and let's see if we can get to twenty reviews. I'm gonna need you guys to keep me focused and motivated to keep writing until October!**_

_**Question: How would you survive the apocalypse?**_

_**10**_

Daryl pulled away from her, picking up a different pick-ax, and began to pick through the bodies that hadn't been dealt with.

Linzie huffed, scowling at Daryl from under her eyelashes, arms crossed under her chest. "You have got to stop, Daryl."

Daryl grunted as he pulled the pick-ax from a dead walker's head. "What the fuck for? They don't give a shit about us... Hell we'll do better without 'em anyways."

Linzie shrugged. "Maybe so. Maybe in a world with endless supplies of ammo, we are better off. But in this world, we need their stores of ammo, and we need their numbers. If we go it alone, we won't ever sleep, Daryl, we'll be too busy watchin' each other's backs and we will never sleep. Hell, eventually we would just give in to exhaustion, go crazy, blow each others' brains out."

Daryl shook his head. "We could handle it... You, me an' Cooper could do it. Hole up in some abandoned hunting lodge, live off the land, keep real quiet."

"White picket fences, Daryl... America's fondest pipe dream."

Daryl swung the pick-ax down, the sickening crunch-and-slosh of brain matter riding a chill up her spine. He grunted as he pulled the ax loose then looked at her, a strange thoughtful look on his face. "You'd go with me? If I left I mean..."

She nodded slowly. "I trust you, but as long as you're askin' for my opinion, I'm gonna give it."

He nodded. "How you feel about this CDC plan, then... You think it's a good idea?"

She looked down and shrugged. "Better than heading for Fort Benning if you ask me... CDC was largely underground, ran on a self-contained power system and should have some sort of venting system. Even if it's deserted and there ain't no power... if they locked it down before they left and we can get in, it would be a damn sight better than sittin' out here in the open."

"Big if."

She shrugged, looking down at her steel-toes. "Not really, if I can get at the mechanism, I can git it open lickity-split." She acrossed her arms under her chest, breasts pushing against the neckline of her v-neck. Daryl's eyes locked on her chest immediately. "You forget who ye're talkin' to, Dixon."

"Still a big if... _if_ you can get to the mechanism..."

"Yeah... and gotta be able to do it without attracting walkers..." She looked up and caught his eyes south of her face. His eyes darted away and, arching an eyebrow, she laughed.

Daryl wiped the sweat from his brow, streaking dirt across his forehead as blood tinged his cheeks. "Shuddap."

"You eye my tits at the weirdest times."

Daryl glared at her. "Ah said, 'Shut the fuck up'."

"What ever you say, darlin'."

Daryl was still blushing as he moved towards Ed Peletier's body. As he raised the pick-ax, Carol approached, sniffling. "I'll do it, he was my husband after all."

Linzie and Daryl watched in silence as Carol alternated between sobbing and caving her husband's head in.

* * *

><p>Linzie stood at the foot of the line of graves, watching Andrea watching Amy's grave and felt supremely awkward. Daryl grunted and jerked his thumb at the truck.<p>

"Jus' a second." Linzie nodded at Andrea and motioned for Daryl to go to the truck.

"Won't wait long." He regarded her silently and she got the feeling that he couldn't decide whether or not to agree with what she was about to do.

"Won't take long, promise." Daryl nodded and Linzie moved to Andrea's side. Looking down at the grave, she sighed. "I know it don't help none... Don't make the pain go away and comin' from... someone like me, it probably don't even make you feel better." Andrea looked up at her but Linzie refused to meet her eyes. "But I'm gonna miss your sister and I know how it feels to have someone taken from you too quick."

"Merle?"

Linzie nodded slowly. "Yeah Merle too, I miss the sunovabitch, but I was talkin' 'bout my daddy." Linzie met Andrea's eyes calmly. "I remember sittin' at that funeral wonderin' if any of the people there, with the exception of my dad's buddies, even cared that he was gone or that he left a kid with no one to take care of her. I know for a fact that some people in the back of the church were placin' bets on how long it would take me to get knocked up, now that my daddy wasn't there. I didn't want you thinking that nobody cared that she was gone."

Andrea's eyes widened, but she didn't comment on that revelation. "How old were you when he died?"

"Fifteen." Linzie pulled her cigarettes from her pocket and tapped one out, holding it between her lips.

"And you didn't have anyone to take care of you? Where was your mom?" Andrea sniffed slightly when she lit the cigarette.

"Sippin' lemonade with her husband, I'd imagine, glad to have one more thorn outta her side."

"Did your dad have..."

"My daddy got her pregnant when they were teenagers. My daddy wouldn't have screwed another man's wife."

"How old was your dad when he died?"

Linzie blew a smoke ring. "Jus' shy of his thirty-second birthday." Linzie smoked a while longer than snubbed the end out on the heel of her boot. Tucking the end in her pocket to dispose of later, she met Andrea's eyes unashamed. "I smoked one for my daddy, and I know it don't mean much to you but I was smokin' for Amy." She turned and made for the truck.

"Thank you, Linzie."

Linzie turned over her shoulder and nodded.

* * *

><p>"You for real need a bath."<p>

Daryl looked up at her as he climbed from the cab of the truck. "Wha'?"

"You need to bathe, Daryl. Preferably before we drive for the CDC." Linzie approached him carefully, sniffing delicately.

"You got balls talkin' about me takin' a bath. You got a smudge of dirt on your face that has been there a week!" Daryl's brows drew down over his eyes and Linzie wasn't sure if he knew she was teasing.

"Bull shit." Linzie pointed towards the quarry lake. "You've been wearin' that shirt for a week, I know, I do your laundry. Now git."

Daryl grit his teeth. "We got too much shit to do; gotta load the truck up, tie down the hog, get the tent packed up..."

Linzie rustled through his bags, threw him some clothes, a towel and a bar of soap, cutting him off mid-list. "Go bathe... git. I'll get the bags and the tent all packed up and we'll switch when you're done."

Daryl scoffed and made towards the quarry lake. Five minutes later, he was stalking back toward her, clean and buttoning a clean shirt from the bottom up. She got a nice look at his chest as he decided mid-button to leave the last couple buttons undone.

He smirked as she stood, clean clothes, shampoo and conditioner under one arm. He got closer, pressing into her space. "I ain't got tits, so whatchu eyein'?"

Linzie flushed and walked away, her nose in the air and Daryl laughing behind her.

* * *

><p>If there was one thing Linzie missed more about normal life than football in Jordan-Hare, it was her hair-dryer and if that made her a priss, well hell.<p>

Linzie flipped her hair over, the heavy mass of sopping ringlets hitting her in the face with an audible thwap.

"Fuck." Someone chuckled to her right and she grinned, swinging her hair at Glenn. "You want some a' this, Glenn? I'll be glad to share. It's a heavy bitch and it stings like hell."

Glenn grinned and backed up. "That's alright, Ladybird."

"Yeah that's what I thought." Linzie smiled and began to twist her hair into a low bun. "Take a fuckin' hour to dry." She wrapped a hair band around the base of the bun and pulled a couple bobby pins from her pocket. Once the tangled mess was secured, she pulled her dad's old vintage Auburn Ball cap from her back pocket and made her way towards where Daryl was standing with the group.

Shane approached the circle, voice authoritative and irritating. "Okay, everybody listen up! Those of you with CB's we're gonna be on channel forty, but let's keep the chatter down. Now you got a problem don't have a CB, can't het a signal or anything at all, you're gonna hit your hoen one time. That'll stop the caravan. Any questions?"

Daryl shifted restlessly, rubbing at his face and Moraled stepped forward, hesitating. "We're... we're not going."

His wife clutched her daughter to her side and spoke up. "We have family in Birmingham. We want to be with our people."

Shane sighed. "You go on your own, you won't have anyone to watch your backs."

"We'll take the chance." Morales squared his shoulders. "I have to do what is best for my family."

Rick looked skeptical. "You sure?"

"We talked about it... We're sure."

Rick muttered and turned to Shane as he dug through the gun bag and handed a revolver and a box of bullets to Morales.

Daryl scoffed and turned away as the women hugged each other and the kids. Linzie reached for Daryl's hand and squeezed it, knowing that if it had been them leaving, the others would'nt have even bothered to wave goodbye.

* * *

><p>"Mother-fuckin' tube busted again." Linzie waved the steam away from her face with Daryl's shop rag.<p>

Dale tsked at her slightly and turned to Rick. "I told you we'd never get far on the hose. I said I needed the one from the cube van."

Rick sighed. "Can you jerry-rig it?"

"That's all it's been so far... it's more duct-tape than hose. And I'm out of duct-tape." Dale chuckled lightly when Linzie cussed again, reaching into the motor compartment and coming out with the radiator hose.

"Ladybird?"

She looked up at Rick and shook her head. "Can't go anywhere without a radiator hose. You get me one that might fit and I can make it work... hell you find me a roll'a duct-tape and I can make it work, but this," she shook the limp hose at him, "This ain't gonna hold no more."

Shane pulled the binoculars from his eyes and turned toward them. "I see something up ahead. Gas station if we're lucky."

Jacqui came bursting from the RV and they all turned toward her. "Y'all Jim-It's bad. I don't think he can take anymore."

They all kept talking, ignoring the bad news and Linzie sucked in a breath.

"Rick, you want to hold down the fort? I'll driving ahead see what I can bring back?"

T-Dog nodded. "Yeah, I'll come along too and I'll back you up."

Linzie tsked. "How much you know about trucks and RV's anyhoo, officer?"

Shane shrugged. "Not much."

Sighing, Linzie took her knife from her belt and cut off a small section of the hose. "It needs to be this big or a slight bit bigger. Smaller won't work and too big will leak. You're gonna be looking for vehicles around the same size as the RV. Cube vans, small semis, even a heavy duty diesel truck might have one long enough. Get the longest one you can find, I can make it shorter but I'm not magic."

* * *

><p>"Try her again for me, Glenn?"<p>

Glenn started the engine and Linzie sighed in relief as the engine roared to life. "It running hot?"

Glenn shrugged. "How can you tell?"

Linzie shot him a look and then stood, catching Daryl's eyes, who shook his head and leaned over to look at Glenn. "What do you mean 'how do you tell?' Ain't never had a car run hot on ya, Short Round?"

Glenn shook his head. "Had a bike, like a pedal-bike not a motorcycle... it always ran hot...and I'm Korean"

Linzie laughed boosted herself into the RV only to be met with a gust of cool air. "That's how you tell. If it's cold in here the radiator is doin' its job. Also," she paused and tapped the heat gauge. "Ideally this needle is either right in the middle or below, it gets toward the red, it's running hot and you need to pull over or run the risk of bakin' out your engine."

"Which means?"

"Trouble."

* * *

><p>Linzie leaned over Jim. "Jimbo... are ya sure?" She could feel the tears in her eyes and didn't care.<p>

"Yeah Birdie... I ain't gonna make it much longer... sure won't make it to the CDC, it's best that y'all leave me here in peace."

Linzie wiped at her eyes. "I'm gonna miss ya."

He smiled quietly and squeezed her hand. "I'm gonna miss you too. You take care a' yourself."

She nodded. "I'll try."

"Now git." Linzie stood and rubbed furiously at her eyes on the way to the truck.

Daryl nodded at Jim and turned to leave.

"You take care a' her. She'd be good for you... She's a good woman. You treat her right."

Daryl paused and nodded again.

_**So what do you think? CDC next episode! YAY! Make sure to review and answer this chapter's question: How would you survive the zombie apocalypse?**_


	11. 11

_**I know... this took forever... and I am so sorry. I've been busy reading the Hunger Games, then watching the Hunger Games, then reading Hunger Games fanfiction, and then wandering if I'm too old for Josh Hutcherson (by the way, I am, but I think I'd be willing to go cougar for the kid.)**_

_**Anyways that is why I was saying that I would need to you guys to help me focused! I got sixteen reviews last time and I present to you the same goal... twenty reviews! I have 124 people getting an email when I update, I thinks it's fair to hope that at least a sixth of you would drop me a line.**_

_**Please drop me a line if you don't want me to get distracted and start writing Katniss/Peeta stories!**_

_**Question: Favorite book?**_

**_11_**

Daryl leaned forward in his seat and pulled the red shop rag from his pocket. Shaking it out, he pressed it into Linzie's hand and clipped the lead on Cooper's collar. "You stay in front of me."

Linzie met his eyes and nodded as she closed the bolt on her rifle. They shared one last look as they opened the truck doors. Linzie took a second to situate, tucking her revolver in her shorts and looping her arm through the hunting lead, before joining the others, her eye already trained down the scope. Whispering, she approached Rick and Shane. "I don't see anything moving... it's all dead..." She paused. "_Dead_ Dead, not movin'."

Rick nodded and they moved forward slowly, picking their way around the bodies of so many people, a sea of bone-white, camouflage and fleshy, decomposed red. Linzie wheezed and coughed and then remembered Daryl's shop-rag. Juggling her rifle around carefully, she was able to get the shop-rag out of her right hand and pressed against her face with her left.

As they reached the door. Linzie passed Cooper's lead to Carl with a shaky smile, and took the flashlight Daryl handed her. Quickly, nervously she searched around the perimeter of the door. Cursing vilely, she checked again, her shaking hands causing the flashlight's light to bounce all over the door. "Nothing."

"What?" There was a frantic edge to Carol's voice.

Linzie glanced back quickly. "I was expecting some sort of biometric system, something that requires a password or code of some sort. But I should've known."

Lori was the next to speak. "Known what?"

"Biometric or pass-coded systems are too easy to get into. Anyone with half a brain cell and a cursory knowledge of mechanics and basic electrical principle can get in." Linzie cursed again and the fact that no one said anything was a testament to how scared they were. "It's a pulley system." She lay a hand on the metal door. "Probably airplane grade aluminum or something like that, with an armored mechanism housing to prevent tampering. And then I'd wager that the system is linked into some sort of computer program. Maybe that was biometric... but it ain't out here."

Shane strode past her and tried to push the shutter up.

Linzie pulled her pack of cigarettes from her pocket and pulled one in between her lips, her hands shaking so violently that she almost couldn't light it. "Ain't gonna work, I'd bet a month's supply a' food that the only manual way to open these doors was electrical in nature. Too heavy for jus' elbow grease."

Rick banged on the door and T-Dog voiced what they all feared in coming here. "There's no one here."

Rick turned sharply towards them and pointed at the doors. "Then why are these shutters down."

Everyone looked at Linzie as she puffed out a dispassionate smoke ring. "He's right." Rick sighed and Linzie chuckled mirthlessly. "No way that I can see to close that door from the outside, and even if there was, there's no way they could get that door down before the walkers got them. That don't mean they're still alive though..." Linzie could feel the panic in her throat. "Coulda got bit, coulda realized that this is the end and took the easy road, coulda died of starvation, heart-attack, coulda gone crazy and could be wondering these hallowed halls." She giggled a little hysterically and jumped as Cooper whined and pressed against her leg.

"Walker!" Daryl killed the walker and turned on Rick. "You led us into a graveyard!" He brushed passed Linzie as she sat smoking.

Shane glared at Daryl. "He made a call."

"It was the wrong damn call!"

Shane advanced. "Shut up! You hear me? Just shut up."

Linzie raised her rifle in between the two pushing men and shot an approaching walker, then went back to smoking her cigarette.

Shane and Daryl stared at her, before Shane turned back towards Rick. "Rick this is a dead end."

Daryl glared down at her. "You just gonna give up?"

Linzie shrugged. "What else is there to do?"

Daryl cursed. "Fight."

Linzie chuckled again. "Fight what? Inevitability? I'm an engineer, Daryl, a pragmatist. As long as we had a quiet place to hide out from the walkers, there was hope. But where do we go now?"

Daryl glared down at her. "Don't be a bitch."

"Fuck you." She threw the cigarette down. "You don't know shit."

They started to move back towards the car, when both Rick and Linzie stopped and turned back to the doors.

"Did you see that?" Rick wide eyes met Linzie's.

"No but I heard it."

"Heard what?" Daryl hovered over her shoulder.

"The camera - it moved." Rick stepped closer to the door

"You imagined it."

"It moved."

* * *

><p>The doctor held out his hand and Linzie placed her arm in his hand.<p>

"Any chance you could be pregnant?"

Linzie snorted. "No."

Jenner nodded. "Any diseases?"

"No."

"Cancer?" He regarded her seriously. "I can smell the smoke on you."

Linzie shrugged. "I got checked before the end of the world."

"You can't smoke in here."

"Figured." Linzie winced and felt her stomach roll as he took the first vial of blood from her arm. "Surprised you'd let me keep my dog."

"Don't think I could have dragged the animal from your side." Jenner smiled, pulled his gloves off and ruffled Cooper's ears. "He hasn't let you five feet from him since you entered the building."

Linzie smiled. "Yeah. He's a good dog." He put on a new pair of gloves, prepared a second vial and Linzie felt her head spin. She cursed lightly and closed her eyes.

"Don't like blood?"

Linzie's brow furrowed. "Don't mind blood. Dizzy."

Jenner nodded. "And what did you do before.." He trailed off.

"I taught mechanical engineering at Auburn."

Jenner chuckled and capped off the vial. "Could've used your help months ago. We're done, your sleeveless friend is next."

Linzie nodded and stood, fighting to keep upright and marching past the others, her gut turning. "Daryl, your turn."

Linzie let herself rest against the wall behind her, Cooper leaning against her leg. She looked over and watched as Sophia and Carl drew on the white-board behind the good doctor. On the other side of Jenner there was a complex mathematical formula scrawled on the board.

She pushed off the wall and walked to the board. Locating an eraser, she erased an entire section of the formula. She could feel everyone's eyes on her back as she solved the problem correctly.

"Signs were wrong, this reaction is exothermic, system was probably losing a lot of energy in heat. Without taking that into account, this system looks efficient but was... probably using a lot more energy than you thought... ten maybe fifteen kilowatts more."

Jenner snorted. "Figured that out the hard way."

Linzie capped the marker and turned around, catching Daryl's and everyone else's eyes on her. "What?"

* * *

><p>"I haven't drank this much since college." Linzie swigged another mouthful of Southern Comfort.<p>

Andrea chuckled. "Frat parties?"

Linzie snorted. "Do I look like a sorostitute?"

Andrea arched an eyebrow. "Sorostitute?"

"Yeah a sorority girl... Kids in my class called them that."

"I was a sorority girl." Andrea looked like she might be too drunk to be angry.

Linzie downed the rest of the alcohol in her cup and drug her wrist across her face. "I'm not surprised, but I wouldn't have been allowed fifty feet from the sorority dorms."

Dale filled up her cup. "They didn't have houses of their own?"

Linzie giggled. "Nope, some old biddie from days gone by made the school promise that they would never allow sororities to have houses, because she was afraid they'd turn into brothels."

"Mom, can I have some?"

Linzie laughed outright as Lori almost spit out a mouthful of wine. "Absolutely not." She passed Dale her cup.

"You in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner." Dale passed back the cup, flushed with the wine. "And in France."

Lori nodded. "And when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then."

Rick giggled, more carefree than anyone had ever seen. "What's it gonna hurt, com'n."

Lori relented and Linzie glanced at Daryl as Carl gagged on the wine.

"I think you should stick to soda-pop there." Shane grumbled from behind his hands.

"Not you, Glenn."

Glenn looked up, half bleary. "Wha?"

"Keep drinking little man, I wanna see how red your face can get."

Linzie shoved up from the table and made her way unsteadily to where Daryl leaning back against the counter, a new bottle of Southern in his hands.

She popped herself up on the counter and almost fell forward. She giggled as Cooper set himself right between his people.

"Wha's so funny?"

Linzie looked up and caught Daryl's eyes. "What isn't funny?"

Daryl rolled his eyes and grinned. "Neva woulda taken you for a giggly drunk."

Linzie nodded and drained the rest of her cup. "Woulda neva seen me drunk."

"Wha?"

"Quit drinking after I got my undergrad." Linzie stole the bottle of Southern Comfort from Daryl and sloshed it all over her. "Shit."

"Why?"

"I have a prop...prop.. propensity, I think, for getting myself in trouble when I drink. That's what the cop said when he arrested me." Linzie shrugged, still grinning a little maniacally.

"What you get arrested for?"

Linzie giggled. "Punched some dude in the face, started a bar fight... don't rightly remember why though...Got lucky, the cop let me off the hook. Woulda lost my job."

"It seems to me that we haven't properly thanked our host."

Linzie and Daryl looked up as T-Dog raised his glass alongside Rick's. "He is more than just our host."

Daryl raised his bottle. "Here's to you, doc. Booyah!"

"If you shower, go easy on the hot water." The doctor moved on down the hall and the other's dispersed, leaving Daryl, Linzie and Cooper in the hall.

"You want to conserve water with me?"

Daryl blinked. "Wha?"

"I said you wanna conserve water with me?" Linzie smiled shakily and leaned against the wall.

"You're drunk."

"You too."

Daryl shrugged and leaned over and kissed her.

_**Remember review and answer the question: favorite book? And we're shooting for twenty reviews, if one in every six of you review, we will make that goal!**_


	12. 12

_**I know.. this took forever... I just haven't felt like writing. Sorry! Now I still haven't gotten my twenty reviews, so I'm gonna ask for them once again! I need them to motivate me so please please review and thanks so much for those who review regularly! I love you guys.**_

_**That being said, I was trying to make this the last season one chapter but I decided to split them up so I hope you enjoy it.**_

_**My favorite book is Pride and Prejudice and this chapter's question is: Favorite cartoon/tv show beside from the Walking Dead.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

_**12**_

As the door frame bit into her spine and Daryl bit roughly into her shoulder, something should've clicked, whether it be physical pain or the irony that something that felt so good could parallel nicely with the end of the world.

She giggled distractedly and Daryl shoved a hand up her shirt, playing lightly with the little Auburn belly button ring attached to her naval before rubbing a thumb over the slightly rougher skin of her tattoo.

He grunted and teased a tongue along her collarbone and she started with the buttons on his shirt.

He gripped her hips and popped her off her feet, supporting her body with his against the door frame. "Yer so damn small..." She giggled again, so past gone that she didn't care that she sounded like an idiot and he made a face.

"Wha?" She leaned into him smiling widely before landing a small kiss on his stubbled cheek.

"Ain't never seen you smile this much."

"Yeah so? Ain't it a good thing that I'm smiling? Wouldn't want to screw a whiny, depressed chick, would you?" Her brow furrowed, the buzz wearing down. She unbuttoned a couple more buttons before blushing, as she realized what she was doing in a sudden rush.

Daryl's hand stilled on her hips, his grip nearly bruising. "Yer frownin' now. Remember who I am?"

She met his eyes and puzzled at the angry hurt there. "What the hell does that mean?"

Daryl scoffed and let her down. "Please, bitch."

Linzie fixed her shirt in an angry tug. "'xcuse me? You betta check yourself, asshole. Had your tongue down my throat two seconds ago and now I'm 'bitch'? What the hell?"

"Yer tha one what started this! Then you go and put the breaks on it."

"I didn't put tha breaks on nuthin'! You did. If anyone's second guessin' it's all in your head. Fuckin' asshole." Linzie crossed her arms over her chest and refused to look at him even as he stomped over to her.

"Look at me."

"Fuck you."

Daryl growled and grabbed her arm, hauling her closer to him. "Look at me, Woman!"

Linzie jerked away from him. "Don't fuckin' talk like you own me Dixon, I ain't no Carol and you ain't no Ed."

"Damn right! Carol wouldn't have started something she didn't intend to finish." Daryl shoved an irritated hand through his hair. "Damn it. Shoulda known a woman like you wouldn't want nuthin' ta do with me."

"You're an idiot." Linzie was glaring at him.

Daryl glared back. "Fuck you, Bitch."

"You ain't got no clue what a woman like me wants or doesn't want. And I sure as hell ain't eva treated you any better or worse for being what you are."

Daryl rolled his eyes. "Yeah and what's that?"

Linzie smiled, not a sarcastic smirk or a drunken leer, just a soft, quiet smile. "A good man, Daryl. One who, up to about two minutes ago when he got cold feet, I was fully prepared to fuck like a bitch in heat."

Daryl flushed. "Ain't got cold nuthin."

She yawned loudly and jerked a thumb back towards the bathroom. "Good to hear, now how about that shower?"

* * *

><p>Linzie woke to some very odd sensations, or at least to an odd combination of sensations. One was the splitting headache and dry mouth that accompanied the worst of her hangovers from her college career, not altogether unfamiliar but a little like a long-lost arch nemesis. Two was the very familiar feeling of Cooper's big, wet nose dragging along her temple and forehead.<p>

The third was the one she was having issues placing: she was warm, though the cool air on her exposed arms told her that the room was cool, she felt anchored, but light and buoyant as if nothing was weighing her down and she felt sore, though she couldn't remember doing anything that would have made her sore in some very specific places.

"Wha' tha' fuck?"

Another interesting development: a very rumbly male voice.

Shit.

Linzie shot up in bed and stared down at Daryl as he shifted and peeked out from underneath his hand. "Problem?"

She shook her head mutely, eyeing his chest and the smattering of hairs found there. Her eyes drifted up to the sizable hickey on his neck.

"You gonna speak anytime soon, Ladybird?"

"We had sex."

Daryl's eyes darkened and his brow furrowed. "This is the part where you tell me it was a mistake, right?" Daryl shoved to his feet and reached for his clothes, glaring at her over his naked shoulder. "Save you the trouble."

Linzie pulled blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Give me a break, I have a killer hangover and I ain't had sex in ages... outta practice with the whole morning after shit." She shrugged and looked away. "But I sure as hell wouldn't mind going a round with the bitch what got you second-guessing everything a woman does."

Daryl shrugged and watched her face carefully. "Ain't been given a whole lot of reasons to trust women, especially not women like you. Think they want a round with a redneck, only to realize that they don't."

Linzie rolled her eyes. "I'm a redneck, Daryl."

Daryl shook his head. "Yer a college educated woman, yer smart and you were making money before the world ended. You wouldn't have had any interest in a poor mechanic from the Georgia backwoods."

"You don't know nothin', but as is typical for people of yer gender, you've assumed you do. Had I met you outside of the apocalypse, I more than likely would've jumped your bones, given the first chance." She blushed and cleared her throat. "As it stands, I ain't been given a whole lot of reasons to regret having sex with you. You keep acting like an asshole, I will have to rethink that."

* * *

><p>"Coffee..." Linzie leaned over the cup and sighed, smiling as she leaned back against the computer station.<p>

Daryl shook his head. "There you go with the smiling again."

Linzie chuckled and cast a quick look around the room, when no one was looking, she leaned into Daryl with a coy smile. "Yeah, sex and caffeine will do that to a woman."

He smiled smugly, scooting a tad bit closer and whispering under his breath, "Yeah? I'll keep that in mind."

"Please do."

Jenner approached the front of the room. "I need a playback of TS-19." The computer repeated back the directive and the screen illuminated with brain scans and data. "Few people ever got to see this... Very few."

"Is that a brain?"

Jenner smiled and turned to Carl. "An extraordinary one. Not that it matters in the end. Take us in for the EIV."

The computer repeated the message and the group fell silent as the angle changed, the screen lighting up with blue flashes of light.

Shane was the first to speak. "What are those lights?"

Jenner turned and faced them. "A person's life, experiences, memories. It's everything." He turned back toward the screen almost reverently. "Somewhere in all that organic wiring, all those ripples of light, is you- the thing that makes you unique and human."

Daryl was not impressed and he shoved off of the computer station, his arms crossed over his chest. "You don't make sense ever?"

Jenner tensed up. "Those are synapses, electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

Rick stepped forward. "Death? That's what this is, a vigil?"

Jenner nodded slightly. "Yes. Or rather a playback of the vigil."

Andrea looked stricken. "That person died? Who?"

"Test Subject Nineteen. Someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered to have us record the process. Vi. scan forward to the first event."

Suddenly the brainstem of TS-19 went black, the blackness spreading up into the brain.

"What is that?"

"It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs." Jenner paused and the brain went completely black. "Then death. Everything you ever were or ever will be...gone."

Sophia turned to her mother. "Is that what happened to Jim?"

"Yes."

Jenner turned and caught Andrea's eyes as she blinked back tears.

"She lost somebody two days ago." Lori paused. "Her sister."

Jenner nodded. "I lost somebody too. I know how devastating it is." He turned back to screen. "Scan to the second event."

They all fell quiet as the brain began to light up again, this time red and almost completely limited to the area directly around the brainstem.

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We had reports of it happening in as little as three minutes. The longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient, it was two hours, one minute, seven seconds."

"It restarts the brain?"

"No just the brain stem. Basically, it gets them up and moving."

Rick closed his eyes as if trying to understand. "But they're not alive?"

Jenner turned toward them as if excited to have someone to discuss this with. "You tell me."

Rick shook his head. "It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless, dead. The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part- that doesn't come back. The you part. Just a shell driven by mindless instinct."

Jenner stopped and they all jumped as a bright light flashed in the corner of the screen and a message lit up the corner: "System failure: foreign metal hazard."

Carol started. "God. What was that?"

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea almost sounded reproachful. "Didn't you?"

Jenner didn't answer, choosing instead to direct the computer systems to power down.

"You have no idea what it is do you?"

Jenner looked away. "It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

Jacqui broke in. "Or the wrath of God?"

Jenner smirked slightly. "There is that."

"Somebody must know something?" Andrea stepped forward. "Somebody somewhere."

Carol nodded. "There are others, right? Other facilities?"

"There may be some. People like me."

Rick was next to advance on the doctor. "But you don't know? How can you not know?"

"Everything went down. Communications, directives- all of it. I've been in the dark for almost a month."

Andrea was managing just barely to stay cool. "So it's not just here. There's nothing left anywhere? Nothing? That's what you're really saying, right?"

Jenner didn't answer and everyone just stood there stunned and Daryl covered his face. "Man, I'm gonna get shit-faced drunk. Again."

"Dr. Jenner I know this has been taxing for you and I hate to ask one more question, but... That clock- it's counting down. What happens at zero?"

Jenner shifted. "The basement generators- they run out of fuel."

"And then?" Jenner didn't respond. So Rick addressed the computer. "Vi, what happens when the power runs out?"

"When the power runs out, facility-wide decontamination will occur."

Linzie shivered. "Vi, where are the generators?"

* * *

><p>Linzie passed her tools to T-Dog and rushed down the stairs, Glenn, Shane and Rick in front of her.<p>

Addressing no one in particular, Glenn asked, "Decontamination? What does that mean?"

Rick shrugged and rounded a flight of stairs. "I don't like the way Jenner clammed up. The way he just wandered off like that."

T-Dog huffed. "What's wrong with him, seriously man? Is he nuts, medicated - or what?"

Linzie shook her head. "Could mean anything. Gives me the chills though."

Rick traced his finger along a map of the basement. "What are we looking for, Ladybird?"

Linzie shrugged. "Depends on the system, something low to the ground, sounds and smells like a combustion engine if it's running on fuel." Linzie looked over the map and spotted a back room. "This is it."

_**Remember to review! They made it easier for you by putting this nifty box down there so you can still see the chapter while you review!**_

_**Question: Favorite cartoon/tv show besides the Walking Dead?**_

_**Review \/ down there! :)**_


	13. Author Note

_**So… I'm discontinuing this story, but never fear, I'm re-writing it. So if you wish to read it, go to my profile page and click on Natural Disaster. Thanks guys! Love ya lots. Sorry this has taken so long!**_


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